


here, and where you are

by cloudedhues



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pride and Prejudice Fusion, Alternate Universe - Regency, Class Differences, Cross-cultural, F/M, Georgian Period, Manipulation, Medium Burn, Period Typical Attitudes, Protective Siblings, implied childhood abuse, proto-feminism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22307152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudedhues/pseuds/cloudedhues
Summary: Akane, one of three Tsunemori sisters, possesses no remarkable talent nor beauty to stand out in a ballroom save for her wit and intellect. As such, she is liked well enough by everyone.Well, nearly everyone.Pride and Prejudice AU.
Relationships: Kougami Shinya/Tsunemori Akane
Comments: 30
Kudos: 77





	1. tolerable

He was tall, that was the first thing.

Also he needed to brush his hair, that was the second thing.

“Wasn’t I right? See how handsome he is! And much richer than Mr. Sasayama, too, from what Mrs. Funahara has told me,” Akane’s mother whispered in an almost frenzied excitement into her ear.

Yes, he was handsome, Akane admitted. But his face would even be more welcoming with a smile. The almost permanent downward curve of his mouth and his bored eyes seemed to suggest that the man took laughter to be a stranger.

However, Akane knew it to be unfair to judge from first impressions.

The crowd was tipped into a hushed standstill as the retinue of rich, young people walked into the dance hall, Mr. Kougami at the center while Mr. Sasayama and his sister appended his sides.

“Oh, Akane, you simply must be introduced to them! Now where is Shion?” Mrs. Tsunemori grabbed her arm with a strength that belied the wiry woman’s stature and Akane could barely get a word in edgewise before the party and the band once again simmered into full blown cacophony. Mrs. Tsunemori took no notice of the dancers who rejoined and battered through the crowd shamelessly to reach her eldest. It did not take long to find her. Shion naturally stood out in any room.

She and Akane exchanged a quick glance of commiseration before their mother was carting them, picking up the other two Tsunemori in tow. Before long, they were dotted into a neat line before the three newcomers, who had been enclosed to the side awkwardly in their own circle of the room.

“Mr. Kougami, Mr. Sasayama, and Miss Sasayama, may I present my wife, Mrs. Tsunemori, and my daughters: Shion, Akane and Mika,” her father introduced.

The three formally recognized them in suit. Mr. Sasayama wasted no time in breaking off from their circle. His grin was friendly and a little too cheerful but there was something charming and vibrant about his demeanor, as if the waistcoat and cravat he wore barely contained the full energy he could manifest at pure will. “It is marvelous to meet you all finally. I have heard nothing but good things from your father. It’s my first time attending a ball in the country and I admire how much merrier it is compared to the city.”

“How were your travels from the capital, may I ask?” Shion inquired politely.

“Oh, not too much trouble,” Mr. Sasayama said the same time his sister piped up, “Wet and cold.”

“What my sister, Yayoi, means to say is that the weather was indeed damp but of course, did nothing to detract from our travels. If anything, it added an even greater sense of adventure,” Mr. Sasayama smoothly intervened. Despite all his cheerful bluster, Akane got the notion that the young man had a way of escaping tricky situations with a careful placement of words. He was crafty, this one.

“If it is not too much of a bother,” he continued, “may I interest you ladies in saving me a dance for later?”

His eyes trailed to all of them but they stopped at Shion. Akane bit back a smile at that. Shion for her part only smiled and affirmed for all of them.

Of course, that wasn’t enough.

“Oh, we would all be appreciative of that, Mr. Sasayama! Although you might want to keep a weather eye out as Shion has been known to have her dance card full at every ball we attend. We would not want another tussle between gentlemen breaking out again, now do we! And as for my Akane, she might not receive the same number of callers but we’ve had a number speak highly of her conversation and manners—”

Their mother nattered on and Akane noticed Miss Sasayama regard Shion with an unreadable expression that she couldn’t fully discern. Mr. Kougami and Mr. Sasayama’s introductory dealings with the force of her mother’s personality would have been more entertaining to watch had Akane not been concerned with Shion, whose politeness was chipping slightly into accustomed weariness. Next to her, Mika tugged at the sleeve of their father’s shirt, an impatient signalling question of whether she could finally go and regroup with her friends.

Thankfully, her father finally received the cue. “My dear, perhaps we have taken enough of their time for now. They have others to be introduced to and I’m sure Mrs. Funahara has been meaning to have a word with you all night.”

“Oh, well, yes, of course…” Mrs. Tsunemori fluttered as she curtsied.

Mika held no love for formal frippery and curtsied in unison with her sisters and her mother. To anyone who did not know her, it wasn’t obvious that she was doing it in a mocking fashion. Akane was about to covertly pinch Mika’s sides in warning when she briefly locked eyes with Mr. Kougami. The distaste in them notified her that he was very much aware of what Mika was doing.

Her parents and Mika filtered off, the latter breaching past politeness in her hurry to meet her friends.

Mr. Sasayama held out a formal hand to Shion, his eyes twinkling a little. “Your mother’s words have given me cause for caution. Would I claim that promise now for fear of fending off any of your admirers later?”

Next to him, Miss Sasayama subtly rolled her eyes. Mr. Kougami remained steadfast and grim as he watched the dancers with barely concealed displeasure.

“It would be my honor, Mr. Sasayama,” Shion said with another curtsy. The two paired off for the next reel.

Akane stood awkwardly next to the remaining two, who seemed perfectly content in standing in uncomfortable silence.

“Are you two fond of dancing as Mr. Sasayama?” she asked in an attempt to ingratiate a friendly air among them.

Miss Sasayama adjusted her gloves neatly as they all watched the line jaunt merrily into formation. “My brother likes it a little too much, I think. But dancing and music provide good fortifiers for one’s health.”

“And you, Mr. Kougami?”

“I’d rather risk illness.” The clipped statement sheared off the rest of the conversation. Akane smiled, both awkward and terribly amused at his almost rude bluntness, and made a quick curtsy to leave it at that.

* * *

Akane couldn’t help her cheer when she saw Yuki waving in a very wild, unladylike manner. The two friends grabbed each other’s hands, leading themselves to a quiet corner, tucked away behind a curtain and separate from the noise and crowd. They watched secretively, taking in a panoramic scene as Akane peeked for her family. Mika was with her group of wallflowers, snickering and tittering behind their fans as they gossiped about the dancers. Her parents were with Yuki’s, Akane’s mother gesticulating in conversation as Akane’s father perfected the art of dozing with his eyes open. Meanwhile, Shion was mid-dance with Mr. Sasayama.

“This is the second time this night he’s asked her to dance.” Yuki noted. “He seems quite taken with her, doesn’t he?”

Akane scoffed in amusement. “He’d be an idiot not to be.”

“You and your wicked mouth. If only people knew your true ways, your reputation as an agreeable young woman would be tarnished.”

“Oh, not my reputation surely.”

“They do make a fine pair, don’t they, Akane?”

“I talked with him briefly earlier when we danced. He seems a little too charming for his own good but is much warmer and more honest than I expected. And funny, too. His stories are very entertaining.”

“And what of Shion? What does she think?”

“It is too early to tell. Shion likes everyone.”

“I haven’t been introduced to their party yet but what were your impressions?”

“Miss Sasayama seems pleasant enough when you can persuade her to talk. Mr. Kougami…well, I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what to make of him,” she said diplomatically.

“Mr. Kougami, it seems, has only danced once and that was with Miss Sasayama. He’s not much for crowds, is he not?”

“Perhaps.”

The quadrille ended with a flourish, the dancers clapping as the band dropped the last note. The next time Akane took a peek, Shion was whisked away into the crowd. She was about to say something to Yuki when two figures stationed themselves next to their curtain and Akane drew it back hurriedly.

Yuki smothered a laugh of glee at the possibility of getting caught and they held gazes as they eavesdropped in silence.

“Never have I met so many charming, young women. Miss Tsunemori especially.”

“Mr. Sasayama,” Yuki mouthed. Akane brought her finger to her lips.

“I’m pleased you’re at least enjoying yourself.”

The other man’s voice was harder to identify until Akane realized why that was. Mr. Kougami’s voice was brusque and rough, but familiar and comfortable as he talked to his friend.

“Come now, Shinya, surely there must be some lucky one here who’s caught your eye.”

“You’ve found yourself fortunate enough to dance twice with the most agreeable girl in the room. Take your worries elsewhere.”

“And what of her younger sister? Miss Akane is very pleasant and entertaining in conversation. I wager you’d enjoy a dance with her.”

“Miss Akane is pleasant enough to regard, yes. Tolerable certainly but not handsome enough to incite an invitation from me. Leave it at that, Mitsuru.”

Their voices drifted off as their departing steps left their stoop by the curtain. Akane saw her reflection in Yuki’s eyes and she turned away.

“Akane,” Yuki started and offered a hand of comfort but drew back when Akane’s shoulders shook with laughter.

“I tried to be diplomatic earlier. But oh, he is a cheerful one, Yuki. My heart goes to Miss Sasayama for sacrificing herself to dance with him.”

Her friend smiled and giggled along as they picked themselves up and joined the rest from behind the curtain.

Akane joined two more gentlemen in a dance, boys she had known in town since childhood and could never see beyond puberty, resolving to save her last dance for the night with her father. Afterwards, she wandered, noting with some amusement as Mr. Sasayama collected Mika for a dance, who spent more time making boastful faces at her friends than paying any actual attention to him. Yuki meanwhile was swept into her parents’ fold as they were introduced to Mr. Kougami and Miss Sasayama.

Loathed as she was to linger in that area again, Akane couldn’t help but follow. She caught them mid-conversation about the state of the party, Mr. Funahara merrily leading the energy of the discussion as he couldn’t help but compliment every aspect. Yuki gave a knowingly amused look towards Akane before returning her attention to her father.

“It heartens my spirits to see young people congregate in parties. It gives me hope for the future, knowing so many possible commitments will be sowed tonight.”

Miss Sasayama nodded to that point. “Music helps. The food of love and so on. Although I am quite fonder of music to listen to rather than to dance with.”

“Ah, but one cannot merely listen and fall in love.”

Mr. Kougami turned his eye from the dance line and spoke brusquely, “Conversation and poetry would be the added fortifier in that regard.”

“Perhaps, but there comes a point when words are insufficient and actions speak more volumes,” Akane offered harmlessly. 

“So if not poetry, what do you propose is the best way to induce affection?” he asked turning his flinty attention towards her.

“Dancing,” Akane replied, her courage bolstering her with an immunity of his stare. “A pleasant enough exercise even with someone just tolerable, don’t you think?”

He did not say anything but a flicker of something registered in his eyes even as his face held little change by way of expression. Beside her, Yuki was visibly biting her lip from smiling. The conversation resumed again to other topics but Akane’s attention had reached its limits after a long night of socialization. 

The night drew forward long and senseless, waning into a scattering as people drifted off to return home in the late hour. Her mother was absolutely sloshed and pretending not to be as she leaned against her husband and a disgruntled Mika who was directing her outside. Yuki squeezed Akane’s hand in goodbye as she met up with her parents while Shion took ownership and linked an arm with hers.

“And how was your night? Not getting into your usual mischief, I hope?”

Akane followed the flow of people out, her tired but lively eyes drifting until impossibly, she matched gazes with the last person she expected. Mr. Kougami was with his retinue, unruffled and stiff from having stood on the side all night. His face was hard to discern from here, but his eyes were as clear as day.

“Akane?”

“Hm? Oh yes, it was…pleasant enough,” she noted with amusement. He held her stare for a second more before turning away first. Akane leaned her head affectionately on her older sister’s shoulder and started chatting about her own night, Mr. Kougami already fading away behind her.

It was unlikely she’d ever see the man again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, i too am surprised that i posted this harried 3am-written au first before my persuasion one, which haha no big deal i've just been working on for over a year s'all good
> 
> any anachronisms are from my own laziness. if it is glaring, please let me know. i wrote the first chapter for fun and now it's turned into an "oh shit, i'm going to have to finish this, aren't i?"


	2. restless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shion becomes ill during a visit to the Sasayama Estate and Akane can’t help but trek in the mud for the sake of a dear sister.

Akane relished brushing Shion’s hair. 

Her sister had the type that naturally fell into waves and every morning, Akane grieved to tie it back. She sometimes longed for the days when they were younger and could wear their hair down. But for now, they had this short hour in the morning to linger over. She drew the whalebone brush back, lightly parting the tresses with a sweep.

“Are you nearly done with hers? I’ve been waiting all morning for my turn.” Mika barged into Shion and Akane’s shared room, breaking the peace with barely concealed impatience.

Shion reached back and patted Akane’s wrist. “You can take care of hers. I can finish from here.”

Akane sighed and turned to her younger sister. Mika had a tendency to make this difficult every day.

No sooner had Akane placed the teeth onto her head that Mika was already complaining. “Ouch! What are you trying to do — pull my scalp off?”

“If you would only hold still,” Akane tutted with bit of annoyance. “I’m being as gentle as I can.”

“As gentle as a brute,” Mika grumbled.

“Well, you can do it yourself if my brutish arms aren’t good enough for you.” She dropped the brush on the vanity table, sensing Mika’s immediate pout when she felt a pull at her sleeve.

“All right, I’ll hold still, I promise. Just do it for me?”

Akane waited, her face unamused.

“Please?” Mika looked up, trying to seem apologetic but failing. At least she was making an attempt, Akane told herself and drew up her patience.

“Fine. Don’t move too much.”

The sisters spent a few moments in silence as they readied and groomed. Shion piled up her hair into an elegant but messy twist. Akane always marveled at how easy she made it seem. She’d be more envious had she not been witness to her sister’s efforts. Only a few were aware of how hard Shion fretted in presenting herself to the world. Once she finished, she inspected Akane’s last touches with Mika’s braid, her face softening as she poked Mika’s cheek, who slapped off her older sister’s hand with put-on irritation.

“You seem tired, little duck. I take it you enjoyed last night?”

Mika scowled at the childhood nickname, pretending not to like it. “I would have enjoyed it more if not for Mother’s embarrassing behavior.”

“She means well. You know she ingratiates herself everywhere to ensure our future.”

“Well, perhaps she could lessen her intensity if she doesn't want to put people off.”

“Please don’t blame her, Mika. Our situation is still tenuous given that Papa’s estate is not entailed to us.”

Mika’s arrogance dimmed into sobriety. “If he dies, do we really have nothing in our name to sustain us?”

Akane cleared her throat as she brought the braid into a knot. “The old man is in perfect health. Let’s not worry about that now. Look.” She offered her a hand mirror. “How do you like it?”

“You copied the style from the portfolio in the dress shop,” Mika noted with a little wonder as she turned her head this way and that.

“I noticed you admiring it when we were in town last week.”

She pretended not to notice Mika flush, well aware that her younger sister was too proud for her own good. 

“It will do. Thank you, I suppose,” she said with a sniff before leaving as unceremoniously as she entered.

Akane rolled her eyes, exchanging a look with Shion. Some things never changed.

“And speaking of last night,” Akane started as she took her place on the chair and allowed her older sister to fashion hers into a practical knot. “You fell asleep in the carriage before you could tell me about it.”

“Oh, you know me. Getting swept off my feet by all those gentlemen is such work. I could barely keep my eyes open when we arrived home.”

Akane knew she meant it as a joke but she wondered if it was truly just that. She had noticed a listlessness in her older sister recently, as if her head had existed farther than where her feet were planted. But Akane had taken no further aims to bring it up. When she had first asked, Shion had only poked her cheek and deemed fatigue to be the cause.

“Your health hasn’t been waning?” Akane asked instead.

“Of course. Nothing to worry over.”

“Well, I don’t blame you for being so easily tired after last night. Mr. Sasayama is certainly a force to contend with and in two separate dances no less. I could see him itching for a third.”

“He’s a pleasant enough young man,” Shion offered casually. Akane’s unbidden thoughts returned to Mr. Kougami’s words from the night before.

“Only pleasant enough?”

“Well enough to win and please any interested young woman, I suppose.”

There was a pragmatic tone in her sister’s voice that Akane found uncharacteristic. 

“I’m sure his income helps,” she quipped.

Finally, some genuine light broke into Shion’s face and she laughed. “Of course it does. Although, it almost did pale in comparison with his friend’s.”

“Yes, of course.” 

“And I say almost because I’m certain Mr. Kougami lost no love from the party last night despite his income. Even Mama found him a bit too proud to stand to the side all night for her tastes.”

“Well I’m happy to know that she still has some sense.” Akane’s voice dropped a little.

Insults almost always rolled over her shoulders like a rock on a hill but there was something about his words and his tone that lodged itself into her gut with a lingering twinge.

“I would say that’s unfair but I still can’t believe he said such a thing about you. Perhaps, you overheard incorrectly?”

“Yuki heard the same. Anyway, it matters little. Because if neither you nor I can tempt him, then I fear for the woman that can.”

Shion did laugh but there was a light caution in her voice. “Oh, my dear, you take care that your mouth won’t bite you back one day.”

“That’s why I have you to rein me in.” 

“Yes. But the time will come when I am with my husband and you are with yours and he will have to act as my substitute.”

The very thought was so foreign to Akane she immediately rejected it. Trying to regain the previous lightness of their mood, she scoffed. “Hardly. You shall be with your husband and I shall be in your spare room as an old maid, minding and spoiling your children in your stead.”

“You won’t marry, Akane?”

“I’ve told you before that only genuine love could persuade me to do so, Shion, so my fate as your leeching spinster sister seems absolute.”

Akane tried to maintain the amused air between them and she succeeded in wringing another smile out from her sister but there was a hollowness she couldn’t fully dismiss in her words, as if saying them enough could not rid the old ache knitted in her ribs.

And of course, the moment dissipated immediately by Mika’s impatient yell from the staircase. “Oi, you two! The eggs are cooling and Mother refuses to start until you two are at the table so stop dawdling! I refuse to eat cold eggs!”

The two sisters sighed before finishing up and leaving for breakfast for fear of causing Mika another episode of conniptions.

* * *

Of course, no one could ever fully prevent their younger sister’s outbursts.

The squawk that came out of her mouth would have been more amusing had she not been shoving the letter onto Akane’s face, nearly causing the latter to drop her book into her porridge. 

“What news, Mika?” their mother said wearily, her hand rubbing her temple. “My head is so clogged. Could you spare us the theatrics this morning?”

Mika’s usual reply to their mother’s snippiness merited one of her sullen silences but whatever she held in the letter could not be contained.

“Look at this! Oh, it is the most exciting of news! The 16th regiment is being stationed near the village for almost a month. Kagami wrote to me that her brother is en route with his fellow soldiers at this very moment. Is that not the most thrilling news you’ve ever heard?”

There was a murmur of uncommitted replies, which surprisingly did little to deter her from her excitement. She turned wildly to Mr. Tsunemori who was flipping through the weekly gazette and paying no mind as usual to the morning dramatics of the Tsunemori women.

“Oh, Papa, we must go to town next week! There will be a parade and a ceremony and both Kagami and Yoshika will be there so it is absolutely imperative that I cannot miss it!”

“Yes, yes, little duck. I’m sure your sisters can accompany you when they visit next time,” he murmured distractedly as he flipped another page.

“Not next time! Next week!”

Mr. Tsunemori brought the newspaper down a fraction of an inch and gave a pointed look to Akane behind his spectacles. 

“Only if you feed the hens this week,” Akane proposed to her firmly.

Her younger sister drew back and relented with a scowl when she saw the stubborn look on Akane’s face. She chewed angrily at her eggs. “Fine. But I’m holding you to it even if I have to drag you.”

“Mika, my dear, swallow your food before speaking. And Shion, you’ve not touched your letters yet,” Mrs. Tsunemori said airily, as if it did not matter to her at all. Her bleary eyes even now were fixed onto Shion’s usual morning pile of callers and admirers seeking her company.

Shion lingered over buttering her toast before finally sparing her mother who seemed to vibrate in place as she waited with barely suppressed impatience. She opened the first, screening it carefully before she registered it with a little surprise.

“Oh, come now, dear Shion, what’s in the letter?” Mrs. Tsunemori leaned towards her. 

“It’s Miss Sasayama,” she said slowly as she read it a second time. “She wishes to invite me to dine at their manor tonight.”

Their mother’s face lifted against the force of her lingering inebriation. “And Mr. Sasayama?”

“Has gone on a trip to the capital for some remaining business, it seems, and will not be joining us.”

Their mother’s shoulders sagged. “Hm. Well. A generous invitation still. You’ll be accepting, I hope?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“You’ll send Shion with the carriage then, Mama?” Akane inquired as she cut through her ham.

Their mother looked outside the window as if contemplating something.

“No, I don’t think I will,” she said finally as if piecing out some equation in her head. “A brisk walk should do your constitution some good.”

“It’s four miles—” Akane interjected.

“Now, now, we shall spare poor Hajime for today and give him some time to recuperate from last night. You must not overly rely on our coachman. He’s been getting on in his years—”

“Since when have you cared about what Hajime—” 

“A walk should be fine, Akane,” Shion interrupted, entreating her sister not to poke at their mother into lapsing into an episode to rival Mika’s. “It’s fine weather anyway. I’m sure the walk will do well for my health.”

* * *

“Sick! With a cold!” Akane berated the woman who was pleasantly helping their housekeeper, Mrs. Tanaka, hang the linens. She was certain their mother was communing with the devil to garner powers of sorcery.

“Well, I’m sure she’s better off being serviced there than here,” Mrs. Tsunemori artfully dodged Akane’s attempts to flutter the letter from Shion in front of her face.

“Have you no shame—?”

“Now, now, Akane, I’m sure you can’t fully ascribe yesterday’s weather to your mother,” her father said as he came over, rubbing Akane on the shoulder.

“Oh, I would not put it past her.”

“She may be a force of nature but even nature itself is beyond her control.”

Mrs. Tsunemori’s eyes warmed fondly as she patted her husband’s cheek. “Thank you for coming to my defense, my dear. Now place these dry ones in our dresser. And try not to leave prints inside like you usually do, hm?”

Her father shared a smile of familiarity as he passed Akane with his arms full of fabrics into the house.

“I’m going after her.”

“She is not in her deathbed, Akane.”

“With such a mother, she might as well be.”

Mrs. Tsunemori gave her an exasperated look. “Hajime is in town running some errands so you’ll have to wait if you want the carriage.”

“I can walk.”

“It’s four inches deep in mud!”

“Well, my dress will have to survive,” Akane smiled savagely before going inside to grab her coat.

Stubborn as she was, she couldn’t help but admit her mother’s point a third of the way into her trek to the Sasayama estate. But the lingering wetness from the rain brought a fortifying briskness in her bones and blood and Akane soldiered forward, intent on enjoying nature in her solitude. 

Truthfully, it did not become fully cognizant to her until she reached the fine grounds and was at their front door that her untied, windswept hair and dirty hem might have been inappropriate given the grandeur of her surroundings and her company.

Nevertheless, she followed the footman, who was polite enough to hide his distaste at the sight of her boots tracking the remaining evidence of her journey into the polished floors.

“Miss Akane Tsunemori,” he announced primly when they stopped by the archway into a fashionable parlor. At the center, Mr. Kougami and Miss Sasayama were situated on opposite sides of a chess board.

Miss Sasayama’s only response was to lift an eyebrow at her unseemly entrance. Mr. Kougami fixed his gaze at Akane, his usually obstinate expression almost severe in surprise for a minuscule second before he jerked out of a stupor as if suddenly remembering his manners. He stood, bowing elegantly.

Akane smiled awkwardly at them both, feeling even more out of place in front of their rich attire. “My apologies for the intrusion. I’m here to see my sister?”

There was a pause as Akane waited for one of them to say something. Miss Sasayama glanced at Mr. Kougami who was still staring at Akane in silence.

“Yes,” Miss Sasayama said finally, clearing her throat. “The poor girl’s been bedridden since last night. I can show you to her. Shinya, our next match will have to wait.”

He tore his gaze away reluctantly before giving her a short nod. “Of course.”

She dismissed the footman and led Akane to a new wing of the manor in some winding path to another hallway.

“We’ve already had a physician to see her. He says it is merely a slight fever and chills and not an enormous cause for worry. Although I have been taking care to check in every hour.”

Akane spared a peripheral glance at the woman, gratitude softening her view. Miss Sasayama’s whole front seemed cold from the world but Akane found a warmth in her actions that she probably kept well-hidden. 

“Here we are.” Miss Sasayama knocked twice on the door. “Shion? I’m coming in. Your sister is here with me.”

“Yayoi? Is that you?”

Akane’s heart clenched to see her sister’s pallid and exhausted face from the bed. She rushed to her bedside and grabbed Shion’s heated hands. 

“Oh, you did not have to come all this way,” she groaned with half-laughter.

“Of course I did!”

“Truly, I have not been better cared for than in Yayoi’s hands.” She glanced at Miss Sasayama who blinked twice before looking away.

Akane smiled warmly at their host. “I could not be more grateful with the attention you’ve shown my sister.”

“It is no trouble at all,” Miss Sasayama said with a hint of discomfort before situating her expression more formally. “I shall leave you in each other’s confidences.”

When they were finally alone, Akane took the rag on the end table and soaked it in the water basin. She swept Shion’s forehead, brushing back the sweaty locks with her fingers.

“Truly, how are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better. I feel slightly silly at having so many people fret over me for some simple cold.”

“Cold,” Akane scoffed. “Mind yourself better, Shion.”

“I’ve no need. They’ve been so generous. Yayoi especially.”

“Yayoi?”

“She’s been helping the maids take care of me. To keep calling her so formally seems so strange. I don’t know how to thank her.”

“Well you can show your thanks by getting better. That way, we can cause them no more worry and finally depart for home.”

“So you’re staying then?”

Akane tried to shrug easily even as her stomach dropped with resignation. “Of course I am.”

* * *

Thankfully, Shion did begin to show signs of improvement over the next two days. Akane had politely rejected Miss Sasayama’s offer for a separate room, instead opting for the chaise lounge in Shion’s as her bed. Her back cricked uncomfortably every time she woke but her spirits were well fortified every time she checked her older sister’s forehead and found it cooling.

Much of her time was spent overseeing her sister, a job which, to her relief, meant that she spent little time with the other occupants of the house. Although Miss Sasayama was more approachable than when they first met, Akane still did not know how to engage her in conversation when they were left alone. Mr. Kougami’s added presence offered no help as well.

In fact, he only seemed to exacerbate the atmosphere. He was either brooding in silence, too proud to talk, or glaring as if in accusation of Akane’s very presence in his circle. She did not know what she had done to merit his intense stares, especially during those times when he thought she wasn’t aware, but it certainly did not help her already sordid opinion of the man. 

As such, Akane took her dinner in her sister’s room and waited for a letter from home. 

By the time Mr. Sasayama was set to arrive from his travel to the capital, Shion’s color had returned even if she was still a little frail. In celebration, Miss Sasayama proposed to hold a lavish dinner in their dining room.

Mr. Sasayama arrived earlier than expected in the afternoon with all his bluster and energy, and it seemed as if the whole house could breathe with his entrance. He was all apology at Shion’s state, even going so far as to bring a souvenir from the capital in the form of a silk pelisse. 

It probably did little to dent his coffers, light of a gift as it was, but such an offering was laced with weighty intent. Shion’s smile was sweet but knowing as she accepted it. 

Akane for her part said nothing as she watched their exchange, a mixed feeling following her as she followed the pair to the dinner table.

“Yayoi mentions you’ve been quite listless since your arrival,” Mr. Sasayama remarked as he turned to Akane, who had been staring at her soup and internally pinched herself to better pay attention. “It makes me fear that we haven’t been very entertaining hosts.”

“Oh, forgive me. I did not mean to offend you. You’ve been very gracious—“

“Don’t trouble yourself, Miss Akane. My brother has a contemptuous habit of teasing young ladies,” Miss Sasayama said before taking a sip from her champagne flute.

“Alas, it is my vice,” he admitted boyishly.

“Well, I’ll indulge you if you wish, for it will give me an opportunity to practice unlearning my helplessness,” Shion offered, her demeanor charming and light even as her voice rasped slightly with sickness.

“Dangerous words, Miss Tsunemori, if you mean that as a challenge.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find me an easy opponent. I only mean to deflect from my sister’s plight. She occupies herself with her writing and her books at home that she can’t help her pacing here now that she’s without them.”

“Is that true?” Mr. Sasayama frowned slightly. “I wish you’d told us. We have a library and a more equipped writing desk upstairs available although it does pain me to admit that our shelves are quite bare as we’ve been waiting for the rest of our belongings to arrive.”

“It is no trouble,” Akane said, eyeing her sister pointedly. “I am happy to peruse whatever is available.”

“I picture that as a small girl, you were the type to forgo paying calls in favor of staying home to read. Would I be correct in my presumptions, Miss Akane?”

“Yes, you would be,” she said slowly, unsure if she necessarily liked the compliment he was paying her. If indeed, it was a compliment. 

“I imagine Mrs. Tsunemori took some pains in wrangling you in your comportment lessons.”

Now that in fact was presumptuous of him but there was an easiness in his manner that informed her that he was very much guileless or at least genuine. 

“She did indeed,” she said with an affectionate, little smile. Overbearing as her mother was, she was thorough and intensive. “Although I’ve grown quite fond of dancing over time. I will admit Shion is the more accomplished of either of us.”

“Well, I would not sell yourself short, Miss Akane, for I am sure that there are many things that you are well accomplished at that cannot be measured.”

She wondered a little again at his tone. Did he hold a tendency to ingratiate himself with any young woman? She peeked a look at her sister who was preoccupied with covertly dabbing her running nose with a handkerchief.

“Perhaps,” she said, allowing a little of her honesty forward. “But then again, if it cannot be measured, how are you to know?” 

“You should take care not to trap yourself in a potential debate with my sister, Mr. Sasayama,” Shion added dryly before he could respond. “Our father often states that had she been born a man, she would have made a terrifying barrister.”

“I don’t think Miss Akane would need to be born a man to be a terrifying kind of anything,” Mr. Sasayama noted with a touch of cheek. Akane found that a better compliment. 

“And what sort of literature has kindled your interest, Miss Akane?”

Mr. Kougami’s surprising question after a half hour of stewing in silence nearly caused Akane to drop her spoon. He was looking at her fixedly, wearing that same kind of expression she still hadn’t found a clear name for. She regained her wits quickly enough and recalled her father’s library.

“Novels,” she said simply.

“Novels.” Was that disapproval in his voice?

“Yes,” she said, lifting her chin a little higher, trying not to default into defensiveness. “I am aware of their reputation but I’ve found Miss Morrison a winning author worthy of the classics in my father’s bookshelves.”

“Miss Morrison? She is unmarried and an author?” Miss Sasayama questioned, a surprising curiosity laced in her voice.

“Yes. She writes comedies, usually ending happily with a marriage.”

“How have I not heard of her? It seems as if she is the type rife for scandal,” Mr. Sasayama said, a kind of wondrous awe at the notion of such a woman.

“That’s because you hardly read,” Miss Sasayama quipped with little heat. “But yes, to be unmarried and earning your own income - it is unheard of for a proper lady.”

Surprisingly, Shion beat Akane in replying. “Perhaps it is unheard of because no one has talked much about it.”

“Is it your implication that there is a silent number of respectable women who have decided to forgo matrimonial vows and committed to becoming spinster authors instead?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Shion replied demurely. “But I only mean to say that there should be some room in our expectations of proper routes for our fellow sex. There are plenty enough of young ladies willing for marriageable young men to claim.”

“And the rest? What do you propose a single woman do to survive this world?”

Miss Sasayama’s eyes were trained on Shion with undisguised interest in her reply. It was the first time Akane had seen her wear anything close to animation on her face.

“Oh, many things. But perhaps that is a conversation best left out of the dinner table,” Shion said casually, sparing Akane a quick look. “All I know is that my sister has quite a range of literary tastes that she’s been generous enough to entertain me with on many rainy occasions.”

“And what else comprises your reading pursuits, Miss Akane?” Mr. Sasayama asked indulgently.

“The Greeks. My father is fond of Euripides and Medea is one of our favorites.”

“An avoidable end for a tragedy, don’t you think?” Mr. Kougami intervened again. Mr. Sasayama opened his mouth to say something but Akane couldn’t help her interruption in her need to reply.

“I would not choose that word. Wouldn’t you say all Greek tragedies are in fact unavoidable in a sense?”

“What do you mean?” He turned that severe stare towards her again and distantly, she couldn’t help but think that he would make a demanding tutor.

She started slowly. “Well, Oedipus could have crossed a different road or gone traveling another day the week after Laius but the very fact that chance willed him to encounter and kill his father in that exact road at that exact time anyway - what is more inevitable than what forces beyond us will into being?”

“You take a lot of stock in Fate then?”

“I take a lot of stock in what one can and cannot do given their circumstances.”

“Little comfort for Medea’s children. I’m certain you despaired as much as they for their mother’s willfulness.” 

Akane’s mouth twitched a little. Was that a touch of sarcasm in his voice? He certainly had all the money of a rich, learned man but none of the dinner manners.

“Yes, it is despairing but more so that she had no other option.”

“How so? No one forced the knife into her hands.”

“She had no choice.”

“There is always a choice.”

The patronizing touch made Akane bristle. “You’ll find, Mr. Kougami, that for many women like Medea who live under the duress of men like her husband that there is almost always only just the least desirable choice available, which is no choice at all.”

“Many texts have censured her actions, choice or no choice.”

“And how many of those have been written by men?”

There was a pause in his expression as if she had said something he least expected. 

“I hadn’t imagined such a tragedy would read differently from a woman’s vantage point.”

“Then perhaps, you have not talked to many women,” Akane said bluntly, ignoring Shion’s warning kick on her shin.

“I see,” he said of that and spoke no more. Akane found that perhaps her tongue had led her farther than she could follow but chose not to linger too long in her possible foible. Here she was picking at his manners and she had chosen to match him exactly.

An awkward silence settled in the dining room and Akane felt her face heat as she was reminded that they were not the only ones present in this conversation.

“Perhaps a lighter topic than prolicide would better suit the rest of dinner,” Shion remarked smoothly. Mr. Sasayama of course picked up on her cue and led the rest of the meal with his usual ease.

* * *

“Would you like me to draw you a bath, Miss?” the maid asked her. Shion had finally evicted her with the insistence that she sleep on a proper bed and Akane could hardly protest after two stiff nights of tossing and turning.

Her head blanked at the question when the maid repeated it then shook her head as it registered.

“No, that’s all right. Forgive me but what was your name again?”

“Fei, Miss.”

“Fei,” Akane repeated with a smile. “Take care not to worry about me. I have no need for anything but sleep for tonight. But I do wonder if you might tell me the way to my sister’s room from here.”

“Miss?”

“I ask on such an occasion that would require me to check in on her. It is a big house and I’m sure I’d easily lose myself in the dark.”

“I’ll leave the second candle for you then. But you’ll find Miss Tsunemori’s room just down the hall and the last door on your left.”

“Thank you.”

“Will that be all?”

“Yes.” Akane quickly curtsied, unsure if that was the protocol for these upper-level servants but committed to it anyway. No sooner had Fei left that she felt the aged bones of this manor. As extravagant as it was, the finery of the hearth could not overcome the chill that settled in its corners. She thought of home and the warmth of their fireplace and the commotion of their sitting room, praying fervently for her mother’s mercy to bring the carriage sooner than later.

The bed was altogether too big for her and much too soft. She bounced once and twice and it barely creaked. The thought of joining her sister and risking a stiff back just came into her head when she heard a distinct and abrupt rap of two knocks behind her door.

“Who is it?” Akane stood, holding the candle aloft. “Have you returned, Fei?”

There was no answer, save for some fading footsteps. 

For a second, she wondered at the true age of this house when she cautiously creaked the door open and found it empty. There was no one in the vicinity when she looked both ways. She was about to wander the hallway and track down her ghostly visitor when her foot nearly tripped over a bundle left at her doorstep.

Upon closer inspection to the light, she discovered that it was two sets of well worn but elegant books tied with a bit of fashionable ribbon. A novel by a Mr. Yamada and a collection of the Bard’s sonnets.

There was no note affixed on the top nor in any of the pages as she flipped through them. She pondered further before her attention was enticed to the words printed. Akane’s heart warmed at the thought that a bit of her father’s bookshelves followed her here and it was enough to overshadow her curiosity of this generous benefactor.

Being more at ease, she brought the candle to a table and made herself comfortable by the settee, beginning a long night with an old favorite. With some strange connection of familiar feeling, she found the first stanza already underlined with a careful stroke as if its previous owner had revisited it time and time again.

 _Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments,_ she read, following the path of the line with her finger.

_Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove / O no! it is an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken..._


	3. beguiled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akane meets and is intrigued by a mysterious and scholarly bachelor with strange white hair and even stranger opinions.

The morning greeted Akane with yet another sore neck and a knock on the door.

“Akane?”

She yawned the last vestiges of a fitful night away from her mind and sat stiffly on the settee that had served as her unwitting bed.

“Come in,” she answered thickly as she picked up the novel that had dropped on the floor some time while she was sleeping.

Shion entered the room with Fei in tow, the older woman carrying two heavy pails of water that did not even seem to weigh down her thewy arms. Behind them, another set of pails lay waiting by the doorway.

“Fei informed me you refused a bath last night and I gather that you might appreciate one this morning.” Shion placed down a pile of fabrics on the bed.

“If that is your way of politely telling me that my scent leaves little to be desired, I’ll forgive you only because I can hardly retort in defense.”

“Of course it’s not. I’m hardly polite,” she teased. Akane studied her sister with bleary eyes, noting with some satisfaction that nearly all traces of illness had left her face and she was nothing but good humor this morning. In fact, Akane just realized now how fashionable she looked. Shion paired Mr. Sasayama’s gift with a sophisticated dress that certainly did not emerge from their father’s obliging graces and provided a perfect fit for her statuesque frame. They watched as Fei fill the tub behind the screen with that morning’s heated water. Akane felt rather silly watching her do all the work that she decided to make herself useful and drew a new fire on the hearth. Soon enough, the room had reached a warmth that bordered on indulgence.

“Will that be all, Miss?” Fei asked and Akane nodded her thanks as the maid took her leave. A bath would do her good. Her head was throbbing.

“Are you well? I hope you didn’t catch my cold.”

“No, no. I should be fine. You know sleep rarely comes easily to me anyway.”

“Reading has always kept you late. Were you off to some mischievous adventure last night? I hope you weren’t sneaking around the library Mr. Sasayama mentioned.”

“Nothing of the sort.” Akane looked at the books on the end table.

“It’s such a luxury, isn’t it, to be waited on hand and foot? I’m still quite unaccustomed to being served,” Shion wondered aloud as Akane dragged herself behind the screen to strip. She dipped a toe in the water and shivered with delight when she sunk her entire body into the tub.

“Imagine ordering Mrs. Tanaka to draw you a bath.”

“She’d laugh herself to death first,” Shion said with an unladylike snort. “We are only some miles away from home and yet this manor seems to be of another world.”

“Imagine living this everyday. Being mistress to such a place.”

There was silence on the side of the screen and Akane stilled from cleansing her arms with the lye. “Have you?”

“I have...actually. Been imagining it.”

“I’m sure,” Akane said carefully, wishing that the screen didn’t block her view. These conversations always worked best when Akane could see her expressions.

“I take care not to assume the unsaid but I have to be obtuse to ignore his intention. Or rather what he’s been signaling to me so far.”

“I think with his pedigree and reputation, it’d be heartless and impractical to string any young woman to no promised end. The question is: how do you feel about it?”

“Well, I’d be even more obtuse not to welcome it.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Shion was silent for another moment before she answered, an easy acceptance in it that Akane found more concerning than weary resignation. “I don’t think what I feel ultimately matters.”

Akane sat up straight so suddenly the water almost splashed out of the tub. “Of course it does! What kind of blasted nonsense are you spouting?”

“Such language, Akane,” she tutted lightly before shifting her tone to seriousness. “We know what we are meant to do.”

“And your feelings bear little importance compared to what is meant?” she challenged.

“Try as we might to ignore it, Papa is not getting any younger. Any moment, the unthinkable might happen and we would be left to our dear cousin’s mercy.”

“You’re really underestimating them both. I didn’t think you unfair, Shion.”

“I have to account for any unfairness against us.”

“We will certainly have to account for it. No need for you to feel as if you have to martyr yourself at the stake to save us all from destitution.”

Shion laughed. “I would hardly consider a marriage to a man who makes nearly half the income of the town to be a sacrifice Joan herself would begrudge to take.”

“It is if it’s the opposite of what your feelings assert,” she said simply.

Akane could sense her sister’s amusement taper off. “There are worse fates than a temperate marriage to a temperate man, Akane.”

“Temperate isn’t the word I would choose,” she said laconically. “There should be other fates for a woman than just settling. You said as much to Miss Sasayama last night.”

“‘Should’ was the word, wasn't it? It has no bearing in reality.”

”Not if you don’t at least try to make it so.”

The sigh on the other side was quiet but perceptible.

“Sometimes I wish I…” Her words caught and she paused as if full to bursting with the unsaid before she finished lamely, “If only the world shared your idealism, Akane.”

There was a genuine note of longing in her voice but Akane couldn’t help the feeling that it wasn’t a compliment to her belief. Her sentence trailed as if she had silently appended it with a qualifier:

_I wish I could be like you and believe in more, but…_

She laughed suddenly. “Look at us debating over a man who has barely begun to show his interest in a courtship. It is much too early to presume such hopes.”

Akane knew she was trying to change the subject. “Well, your new clothing might beg to differ.”

“The dress I am only borrowing from Yayoi. It’s a blessing we’re near the same fit. My sick clothes were hardly suitable.”

“She’s been quite charitable.”

“She has.” Shion’s tone softened. “She brought one for you, too. Although...its length might be less manageable given your height.”

“Are you implying an insufficiency with my stature?”

“My dear, it is not an implication if I’m proclaiming it.”

“And you say I have a wicked mouth,” Akane accused before they dissolved in a fit of giggles.

That was the commonality they shared: they both hated to be on opposing sides.

Akane told herself this as she dried and donned the much-too stylish dress Miss Sasayama had lent her. She found herself standing next to Shion as they stared at the floor-length mirror, her sister smiling as she clasped Akane’s shoulders.

“We look quite the marriageable young pair, don’t we?”

And that was the difference. Shion could be costumed in new clothes and new manners, and have them fitted perfectly to her whether she liked it or not.

Akane could never wear anything but herself. Whether other people liked it or not only mattered in as far as she was willing to laugh along.

“Speak for yourself,” Akane joked even if she couldn’t find it in herself to laugh.

* * *

“That’s my last pawn!”

“And?”

“You feel no remorse whatsoever?”

“Remorse is an emotion wasted on you, Mitsuru.”

Akane watched the siblings with some fond understanding as they bickered lightly over the chess board across the room. Shion was seated between them, watching the game with willful interest after Mr. Sasayama offered to teach her how to play. It was amusing to see Mr. Sasayama attempt to narrate his movements to her in explanation as if Shion had not played chess matches with their father every rainy night. The siblings had settled two quick sessions before Mr. Sasayama looked all too ready to scramble the pieces in frustration.

“Shinya, you fancy a match with the winner after this one?” he asked the man who was settled by the writing desk near the balcony doors.

“You mean Yayoi?” He barely looked up from his writing.

“The gall! You lot wound me deeply and still dare to claim a place in my affections.”

“I’ve yet to finish this letter to my sister and much as I hate to deprive you of another defeat, you’ll have to find another opponent to amuse yourself with.”

“I’d like to have a go against you,” Shion offered gamely when Mr. Sasayama frowned like a denied child. She had directed him her full smile and Akane inwardly pitied the man. Indeed, Mr. Sasayama could only blink twice at the force of her charm before trying to mask how much he was affected with an air of bravado.

“I must caution you, Miss Tsunemori, that I take no prisoners but I’ll attempt to be easy on you,” he offered with put upon gravity.

“Oh, no need. Because I intend to shackle you first,” she teased.

Beside them, Miss Sasayama abruptly stood and brushed the wrinkles off her skirt.

“I feel a stroll around the room would serve my limbs well. Care to join me, Miss Akane?” The tone in her voice suggested that it was less of a request than her politeness permitted. Akane scrambled to stand, grateful to do something than languish in their loveseat.

“Of course.”

Miss Sasayama had longer legs but Akane noted that she was conscientious enough to match her slower pace as they circled the parlor.

“I take it your sister is in good health, Shinya?” Miss Sasayama inquired as they walked by the escritoire.

“She’s well, yes.” He looked up briefly as they passed, catching Akane’s eye for a minuscule second before dropping it back to the missive before him.

“I hope she’s been keeping to her piano lessons.”

“I’ll adopt that as a warning into the letter, though I do fear her governess might feel threatened that you’re encroaching on her job.”

“I hardly think I could provide enough of a threat to be conspicuous for that poor woman to notice knowing your sister’s spirited nature is providing enough for her to handle.”

Mr. Kougami huffed a breath, which Akane took to be his version of amusement. “That is why I don’t skimp on her salary. My sister favors the unbeaten path now but I have faith she’ll right to her proper course as she grows wiser with time.”

In her peripheral, Akane watched her sister engage with Mr. Sasayama, laying her flirtations thick. She played a rookie maneuver Akane knew in her right mind Shion would never ordinarily make at home, leaving her queen open for Mr. Sasayama to take. She was playing a fool, a calculated one, but a fool all the same.

“I’m curious: what is the proper route for a wise enough woman?” Akane wondered, belatedly realizing that she had worded her thoughts aloud.

To his credit, Mr. Kougami didn’t falter, ticking the answer off from rote memory. “Accomplishment. A young lady must be well versed in all manners of skill: drawing, piano, comportment, sewing, riding—among other things.”

“Surely, there’s less time in this world than there are items in your list.” She found herself stopping by the escritoire when they passed and let Miss Sasayama continue without her. Mr. Kougami looked up and pinned Akane to the spot.

“You have little faith in your sex to accomplish all they can will for themselves?” he asked seriously, as if he cared to pay any attention to what she would say.

“I don’t think will has anything to do with it. I’ve met very willful women who’ve accomplished many things but not so much as this fearsome force you’ve just described.”

She had been slowly getting accustomed to his scrutiny. Her courage always rose to the challenge even if she had to consciously ignore the skittering of her pulse to keep her gaze level. Up this close, she noticed that his eyes were a contradictory shade of gray and blue.

“It is an ideal for a reason. There’s no excuse why any young woman shouldn’t aspire to it, impossible or no.”

“The ideal to be fearsome? Why, for once, I think I am in accordance with you, sir.”

He said nothing to that and Akane received the notion that to look away from this man first would be a surrender he’d be loathe to claim. She smiled a little, cocking her head in consideration of his unmoving expression. “If I may be so bold to note, Mr. Kougami, that you are not the type to compromise for less than the best.”

“I am the type to set an example, as is my duty, and my expectations of others should naturally follow, as is my right. Why would I settle for mediocrity?”

“Oh, dear,” Akane said softly. “I can’t imagine the number of disappointments you’ve had to endure from the weakness of such unaccomplished mortals.”

For a second, she pitied him that he saw the world in such an unforgiving and unhappy way.

But only for a second.

“I survived them nonetheless.” He stood so suddenly Akane flinched in surprise but he was too preoccupied with finishing the wax seal on his letter to notice. “I don’t suffer fools gladly, Miss Akane. My good opinion once lost is lost forever, and I’ve yet to re-encounter some past specter to scold me from upholding that credence.”

“So far.”

“So far, worse things could haunt my sleep. Much as I appreciate your concern, I’ll worry enough for my own sake for the both of us.”

He bowed and Akane curtsied and she bravely held the overwhelming urge to make a face at his departing back.

Despite what he might think, she was still a proper lady after all.

Miss Sasayama made another tour and Akane silently rejoined her. There was a clear amusement on the other woman’s face. “I’m afraid you’ve scared him off, Miss Akane.”

She couldn’t help a light chuckle at that, even if it did hold some bite in her ears. “Oh, haven’t you heard, Miss Sasayama? I’m hardly fearsome.”

* * *

Much as Akane was grateful for the luxury of Mr. Sasayama’s wealth as their host and the company of his sister, whom Akane had begun sharing a mutual camaraderie with, she was too aggrieved with a bout of homesickness to fully enjoy either.

So when the footman announced her mother and Mika’s arrival the day afterwards, it was all Akane could do not to rush to the entryway in relief.

Of course, her family made short work of crushing that initial sentiment within the span of five minutes.

Mrs. Tsunemori tittered loudly, holding her hand aloft as if it could stay her good cheer, and nearly spilled her tea in the process. “Mr. Sasayama, you are simply too much! Oh, to think that my dear Shion would gain such generous friends. I dare not count my blessings. Although I am certain that she has paid your charitable gifts by nearly half with her presence. I’m sure you’ve recognized that Shion makes an excellent house guest, so excellent in her grace and decorum in fact that nearly half a day after conversing with a gentleman at my relative’s estate, he was quite in love already and would have proposed right then and there if not for—”

She missed her mother but dear God. She would have found humor in seeing people endure Mrs. Tsunemori’s charm but as she stole a glance at the three who were bearing the brunt of it, unwilling self-consciousness replaced humor with a dreadful weight. Shion shared a glance as if to say, “Well, what can we do?”

Akane chanced a peek at Mika who was wandering freely around the drawing room and letting her nosy hand graze wherever. She discreetly moved closer with forceful slowness when her sister was midway to lifting the canvas covering the pianoforte and probing it with fascination.

“Mika,” she hissed under her breath. “Cover it back.”

“I’m just looking.” She frowned, defensive.

“It’s all right.” Miss Sasayama, who was closer to where they were, seemed to have overheard and intervened quietly. “I don’t mind. Instruments suffer when there’s no one to play them and I haven’t been taking great care of this one in that regard.”

“This belongs to you?” Mika asked, her curiosity overcoming her irreverence. “The design is quite embellished. It must have cost a head and a half.”

“Thank you.” Miss Sasayama strategically ignored talking about the cost. “It was my mother’s. Do you play, Miss Mika?”

She demurred, “Now and then.”

“Mika has a natural affinity for music,” Akane explained with a mixture of reluctance and pride at acknowledging her sister’s skill. “Our cousin used to teach us all manner of music and she was the only one whose mind adhered to his piano lessons.”

“Would you like to play for us then?” Yayoi asked with slight interest.

Mika made a face as if she was deigning to even consider it. “Perhaps. Let’s hear you play first.”

Akane bit back a sigh. Mika’s talent would be more welcoming had she even possessed one ounce of humility about it. Akane knew that she hated to lose and would only compete so long as her win was a foregrounded certainty.

“—and would you believe it? The man demanded a duel for recompense, believing that he had the right to Shion’s hand first. It was the talk of the town for weeks. Thankfully, it did not come to a grievous end as Shion managed to mediate between them to settle without the need for pistols. But imagine such a thing—to be so sought after at barely the age of 16—!”

“Miss Sasayama, I thank you for the opportunity to indulge my sister but I fear such activities would only overstay our welcome. Mama, I’m sure Papa is past expecting us,” Akane rushed, speaking loudly enough to jar her mother out of her one-sided conversation.

“Hm? Oh, yes, yes, of course. My dear husband, you know? He does not say so but I’m sure an empty house is an unnerving thing to endure. Why just this morning—”

Thankfully, her mother had perfected the art of walking and talking and she was in the midst of informing Miss Sasayama quite seriously about the pains of Mr. Tsunemori’s gout when Hajime mercifully pulled to the pathway in front of the manor.

Shion brought her hands to her chest, her countenance soft and genuine. “Mr. Sasayama, I thank you on behalf of my family for the welcome you’ve shown my sister and I this week.”

He responded with a jaunty air. “Think no more of it, Miss Tsunemori. The company of such delightful ladies is a treasured gift.”

There was a smattering of exchanged formalities as they said their farewells. Akane watched in her peripheral with some mirth as Shion clasped Miss Sasayama’s hands, the latter awkwardly returning her grip with stiffness. Akane curtsied to both Mr. Sasayama and Mr. Kougami, holding fast to keep her politeness for the latter.

She turned for the carriage and felt a hand prop her ascent. Akane turned to thank Mr. Sasayama but found herself face to face with that blue and gray.

He said nothing, save for his touch, which was delicate as he dwarfed her hand with his own. The callouses he bore on his fingertips spoke of labor and certainly had no business belonging to a well-bred gentleman. Yet how could a man with such a harsh gaze carry his palms so gently?

It was shorter than a breath to learn so much. And before she could take another, he had already let her go and she was on her seat.

Akane barely registered as the rest of the Tsunemori women piled onto the carriage, and as she stared at him, she felt for a moment that she was a stranger conversing with this man in some silent language neither had the fluency to claim.

But the wheels jerked forward and the present returned. Mr. Kougami turned back to the manor and disappeared from her view, and Akane was just Akane again.

* * *

Returning home was of little fanfare.

“I see you’ve not been spirited away into some backwoods,” Mr. Tsunemori said when she passed by his study.

“No, we haven’t.”

“You were gone so long I almost left my chair to investigate if my two eldest had been inculcated into some cultish bacchanal.”

“Thank you for your concern as always, dear Father. But then again, how can you be sure we’ve not been indoctrinated? Perhaps, they trained us well enough to keep our mouths shut and you would only know for certain when it is far too late and Shion and I have already torn your limbs in a mad frenzy.”

“I have no fear. Instilling silence would be a fruitless endeavor when it comes to you, Akane.”

“Oh, a riot. Quite the jester you are.”

Her father smiled slightly at her sarcasm. “Welcome home, little magpie.”

Soon enough, the excitement of the past week petered into everyday routine. Akane was all too grateful for the normalcy even if Mika’s stir crazy antics were poking at her patience. Shion meanwhile was more occupied with her letters than usual, and Akane watched with some heartedness and trepidation to see her sister smile at some hidden joke written by some sender. Mika was feeding the hens at the very least, and Akane would snicker to herself in the mornings when she overheard her curses amidst a litany of clucks.

That was why, when Mika hovered and loomed over her sleeping form one early hour like some escaped convict, Akane could barely find it in herself to begrudge such theatrics when she knew that she owed a payment.

“The parade is today,” she said slowly like Akane was the one who was the deranged lunatic. “You are to escort me, Kagami and Yoshika all day until all three of us are positively sick with jam tartlets. And you will not say a word of complaint all the while.”

Akane glared at her frumpily before tossing to the opposite side. “Until 4,” she mumbled.

“All day.”

“Four. Mama will lecture us if we stay out past that.”

She knew she was pouting. “Fine.”

It really was not much of a chore as Akane built it up in her head. The occasional fetes that were organized in the main square of the town were always entertaining and provided worthy diversions. The three younger ladies were abuzz with chatter as they walked in front of her, Mika’s voice ringing above them all as she led. They were too caught in their own tangle to pay much attention to Akane, which was a temporary reprieve. Still, she cast a grateful glance at Shion who ambled beside her.

“Must I say how relieved I am that you’ve volunteered to join us. I don’t think I could have handled wrangling one of them, much less all three together.”

Shion did not say anything, her eyes far off.

“Shion?”

“Hm? Oh, sorry. My head must have wandered. You were saying?”

“Nothing of import.” Akane sighed. “We’re almost there.”

Indeed, once they crossed the hill slope, they found the festivities already in full swing as nearly all of the population in the town congregated to wait for the regiment’s arrival. There were caravans posted at the edge of the road leading to the town center, travelling merchants and local businesses alike readying to take advantage of the commotion by selling their wares. Even from this distance, Akane could smell the aroma of warmed cider and fried dumplings.

“Oh, let’s get some sweets!”

“Could we visit the fruit stand?”

“No, I told you: we’re going to the dress shop.”

The girls’ voices mixed in debate and Shion’s gentle words managed to pierce through the din. “How about we do all three? But I do think it’d be best that we find a comfortable spot to watch the parade first. After all, we wouldn’t want to miss Kagami’s brother.”

There was a reluctant jumble of conceded agreement and miraculously, all their energy peaced into a murmur as they entered the road. Akane greeted the usual suspects she found among the crowd. The older couple who lived nearest to their estate, the Kodomas, inquired courteously after her father’s health, which resulted in an absurdly loud conversation amid the chattering ambience that contrasted the banal pleasantries they were exchanging.

It was even a miracle that she managed to find Yuki in the confusion of the throng and the two reached towards each other with girlish excitement. She had so much to tell her.

“Is it just me or are half the people who’ve attended only here for the libations?” Yuki said directly to her ear when they met.

“Really? Who’s the generous sap that’s giving away free ale?”

“I heard the inn might be hosting an event for the soldiers.”

“Well, best to keep Mika away from there.”

Suddenly the chatter rose to a budding excitement before dissolving into cheers as the pipe of the bandmaster heralded the arrival of the militia. Akane looped her arm with Yuki’s and rejoined with the younger girls whose attentions were fixed solely on the dashing and impressive line that marched through town.

“Oh, there he is! There’s Gu-sung!” Kagami cried out, her hand waving wildly at one of the soldiers in formation. The man in question cast a quick look at his sister but made no sign of his recognition save for the small smile that lifted his face. Akane clapped along, the excitement carrying her with the tide of the crowd.

Shion clutched her arm from behind, distracting her from the scene. She was saying something but the crowd was too overwhelming in their volume.

“What?”

“I said I have to go,” Shion repeated as she bent her head closer.

“What for?”

She pursed her lips in reluctance before admitting in a rush, “I promised Yayoi I would meet her at noon near the coffeehouse.”

“So that’s why you agreed to come?”

Shion could only smile sheepishly.

“Shion, you can't leave me with them! I thought we would at least be suffering together.”

“Yuki’s with you now,” she cajoled. “Come now. Please don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what? With betrayal?”

“Please. Akane.” She was suddenly and uncharacteristically serious for a moment, and Akane let the matter drop.

“I’m only teasing,” she said, waving her off. “Go. We can meet again at the plaza at 4. Give Miss Sasayama my greetings.”

Shion mouthed out a “Thank you” and poked her cheek affectionately before she was lost to the crowd.

* * *

“Well a proposal seems almost inevitable at this point, doesn’t it?”

“Didn’t your mother tell you not to count your eggs before they hatch?” Akane said, making sure to keep her voice low. “They’ve only known each other for a fortnight.”

Yuki did not say anything immediately, distracted as she was in inspecting the lace on one of the petticoats displayed. After gorging themselves sick with tarts and much inane debate, the three girls had finally settled on the dress shop to visit last. At least their tempers and manners here were a bit more subdued as the shopkeeper, Mr. Nakamura, was infamous around town for his impatience with flighty customers. Yoshika was peering at some dresses while Kagami and Mika were occupied with the catalog book, hogging it quite covetously to the impatience of some of the other patrons.

“Well, young couples have waited for less before deciding to marry,” Yuki said finally when she caught Akane’s expectant gaze.

“Be serious. Shion is still young and has more time to meet the right sort of man.”

“I’m beginning to think that no right sort of man exists to merit your sister in your eyes.”

“It is not my fault men are disappointing.”

“Not everyone has the luxury of your judgments, Akane.”

“I know. I do not mean to judge,” she sighed. “But why does settling seem such a defeat?”

“Perhaps, settling to some is synonymous with survival,” Yuki said, uncharacteristically calm, as she turned her attention to the ribbons.

Akane paused, wondering at her strange tone. “I know. And yet, I hope. Living is not the same as surviving. I only wish for my sister to live happily.”

“And perhaps, if her husband cannot guarantee it beyond his pockets’ ableness, a sister’s wish should suffice for what money can’t buy,” Yuki said, as if in a sad amusement. “I could not aspire to your idealism, Akane. Your stubbornness to hold to it is unmatched by either man or woman.”

Again, she knew she should take it as a compliment and certainly her dearest friend meant it as such, but Akane couldn’t help the feeling that she was the only one who seemed to be speaking a language only she herself could understand.

“Much as I’m interested in your impressions of the Sasayama siblings, you know where my real curiosity lies,” Yuki continued when her good humor returned, an innocent glint in her eye. “I wonder how Mr. Kougami fared having to tolerate your less than handsome presence for nearly a week. Did he magically transform into a beast at night as we had suspected? Were there claw marks in the hallways?

Akane paused as if in surprise of the fact that his name had followed her even here.

 _No, no claws. His hands are quite gentle_ , she thought automatically before banishing the thought from her head.

She was about to start her complaints about his constant glaring when a cry jolted Akane to distraction and nearly caused her to drop the handkerchief in her hand.

Yoshika was pale-faced in confrontation with Mr. Nakamura, whose pinched face had pinched even more if such a thing was even possible. The poor girl was shaking.

“Care to explain this?”

“Y-You must believe me, the tear was already on the hem before I had even touched it. I swear I had done noth—”

“I saw you fiddling with it from behind the counter. Don’t try to lie to me, young lady.”

“I did nothing, please—”

“You had better wish your father has the money to pay for the damage.”

“Please, my family can’t afford to give away another coin—”

“Spare me your tears, girl!”

Akane’s shackles raised immediately in defense and she was halfway to confronting the shopkeeper when a stranger’s sudden remark disrupted her to pause. Mika seemed to be of the same mind for she nearly bumped into Akane from behind.

“I’m curious, sir,” the stranger almost drawled, “if bullying your customers is a particularly lucrative tactic you exploit to increase your revenue.”

He was dressed in smart but outdated fashion, certainly no aristocrat, but the man held his shoulders with the air of a higher world. Even without his strange coloring, tied white hair and amber eyes that contrasted starkly with his dark clothing, he seemed the type to stand out and command the room with barely a rise in his volume.

Indeed, Mr. Nakamura balked for a moment at this young man who had uttered such a claim so offhandedly without provocation.

“I do not know what you mean to insinuate but if you mean to insult—”

“I don’t think I would need to resort to insults when your wares do enough of it in my stead.” The stranger calmly lifted the edge of another dress with his gloved hand and arched an eyebrow. “It seems as if the clothing in the young lady’s hand is not the only one in need of repair.”

There was a noticeable tear at the sleeve of this other dress and Mr. Nakamura started sputtering.

“Why, that is just—”

“A disgrace? I quite agree. I wonder how your business would fare when word spreads that you hawk shabbily made items while accusing juveniles to act as your scapegoat.”

“You mean to threaten me, sir—”

“I think you have done enough to spread such a reputation without needing my involvement in petty gossip.”

He cast a lazy but pointed glance around the room at the other gawking customers who politely averted their attention. His eyes briefly caught Akane’s and she nearly looked away. But she didn’t.

He turned back to Mr. Nakamura, towering over him quite easily with his height as he stepped closer. “Perhaps to your benefit and the wellbeing of your establishment, it would be best that you cease your threats to this young lady and apologize for your error as a civilized man should. We wouldn’t want to see a fine establishment be the center of such unfounded rumors and suffer as a result, don’t you agree?”

There was no malice in his voice and yet, Mr. Nakamura must have registered something in his look before he turned to Yoshika almost in a daze as he reluctantly bowed and stammered a quick apology. Yoshika had barely accepted the statement in return when he retreated to the backroom as if in a stupor and shut the door behind him.

Like that, the tension dissipated into an awkward hush and the other customers continued their usual activity, casting furtive glances at this strange man. Yuki took her place beside Akane while Mika and Kagami headed straight to Yoshika, both of them hovering protectively.

“What a piece of work, that codgy, old toad,” Mika muttered under her breath.

“Language,” Akane said automatically then stepped in front of the stranger, curtsying before her courage could fail her. “I apologize for my forwardness in introducing myself but I must thank you somehow for your intervention.”

He studied her for a brief moment before bowing. “Shougo Makishima.”

“Miss Akane Tsunemori.”

“I ask for no reward of your apology. I merely offered the truth out loud for anyone to claim and nothing else.”

“You seem so unfettered, almost as if the scene is familiar to you. Have you made a habit of playing hero to young women?”

“I consider it less a habit and more a matter of economics. If there’s a demand, I supply the gap.”

Yoshika extricated herself from her two friends and curtsied shyly. “Sir, I am much obliged to you for your chivalry. I cannot thank you enough for coming to my defense.”

“No thanks are necessary. Although a quick nerve would better suit a young girl than gratefulness. There might come a time when no one can intervene and you are the only one who can champion for yourself. Such is the world, of course.”

Certainly, it was the last thing any of them expected and though his reply would be enough for anyone to be taken aback, Akane found something in his sentiment that resonated.

Mika regained her usual daring and regarded him, unimpressed. “I’ve never seen your face before in town. Your name?”

Akane stared daggers at Mika, who ignored her, but Mr. Makishima took it in stride and formally exchanged introductions with all of them. His grace made it seem as if he was the type who was not easily ruffled.

Surprisingly, Kagami’s face lit up in recognition of his name. “Oh!” she cried before abashedly lowering her voice. “You’re Mr. Makishima, Gu-sung’s friend. Gu-sung is my brother. He’s mentioned your name as his bedfellow before during his university days.”

“You’re Kagami Choe?” he asked with slight interest as if a disembodied name in his head had finally connected to a face.

She nodded in excitement. “He’d written to me that he planned to meet at the plaza shortly after they settled in the camp. Are you here to visit him?”

“Yes, he wrote me similarly. I arrived from the capital just yesterday and this is the only time I can pay him a call before the crown ships him off to the abyss.”

Though his tone was unserious, his words made Akane consider if he held no affection for either the crown or the war, reasonable enough opinions that were rarely voiced aloud. If so, she wondered at this man and his open disregard for policing his opinions even at the risk of being accused as treasonous.

“Perhaps, we should head there now. It is nearing late afternoon,” Yuki offered next to her. “And your sister should be back with Miss Sasayama any moment.”

“A sound idea,” Akane added. “Since we are all heading for the same destination, shall we all walk together?”

Mr. Makishima acquiesced by falling into step next to Akane as the three were all too ready to leave this place and scrambled out while Yuki herded them after exchanging a knowing glance with Akane.

The crowd had thinned when they exited and she was grateful that she didn’t have to raise her voice to manage a conversation. He had long legs and Akane quickened her pace.

“And where do you call home, Miss Tsunemori?”

“Here, actually. My two sisters and I live with my parents just a little distance outside of town.”

“And you’ve lived here your whole life?”

“My father was born in the capital but he moved when he was a young man. This place is all I know.”

“It seems to be a trend of men to indulge in youthful fancy in the city before finding maturity in the country.”

“And as a gentleman who lives in the capital, where do you fall?”

“An old raisin withering on the vine amid the younger fruit,” he said with ironic ease. “I am a widower. My wife died just last Spring.”

Akane’s amusement at his wit softened as her heart clenched in sympathy. Spring was more than a year ago, yet he was still dressed in his mourning weeds. How devoted he must have been!

“You have my sincerest condolences.”

“It was her time. As it will naturally be for all of us. But she had a gifted acumen for the literary business and I mourn for the loss of her genius.”

“Your wife was employed?”

“I work as a publisher and my wife worked with me.”

Akane fell into astounded silence for a moment as she turned this over her head. Such an ambition for a lady was unheard of and yet, here stood a living witness that it had existed.

“What works have you published?” she asked with reined interest.

“Have you heard of Miss Morrison? She is one of my longest collaborators.”

“Yes!” Akane couldn’t help but interject with excitement, causing Yuki to look back briefly with bemusement. “I apologize for my outburst but she is one of my favorites.”

“Well, I applaud you for your discernment.”

“But does it not cause some strife for your business to be associated with single, unmarried women?”

“Miss Morrison is nearly 50 and hardly a renegade. As for me, I consider myself as a patron of the arts — particularly in female talent, which I find to be an untapped fountain of sorts.”

“But surely you caused some chatter in the gossip mill?”

“I care little for the prattle of the uninformed if they mean to relegate me in the margins based on some fictive expectations the whole of society has just unanimously agreed to uphold before our births. There are more worthwhile concerns to occupy the mind.”

Such words! He had little restraint, almost a dangerous amount, but Akane felt heard for the first time.

Before she could think of it, she confessed to him as if they had not just met, “I remember when I was younger, I had grown so exasperated I used to run to the woods and dreamed of staying there to live unbound with the sprites. It is silly to think of now but the idea of walking towards a fate that had already been planned for me without my involvement drove me to such antics.”

He did not say anything immediately and though Akane had kept her tone joking, she wondered if he might have considered it insipid. Instead he said, “I feel fate might think your will to be the inevitable one. I’m sure it is not too late for such dreams, and the faeries would be more than happy to abduct you at any time.”

He turned those strange but disarming amber eyes toward her and Akane bit back a smile. “I’m afraid I’ve grown too old for their tastes.”

“Then what poor taste they must have. I, for one, can only imagine what you must look like unbound.”

She felt her face flush. There was a polite enough distance between them but his lazy smirk and lingering gaze crossed it neatly enough.

With some disappointment and relief, they reached the plaza before Akane could continue his thread. Lieutenant Choe crushed Kagami into him, lifting her feet off the ground when she ran to him in delight. She did not know Kagami’s brother well but she had vaguely remembered him as being good-humored but a bit of a bully from the few times they crossed paths as children. However, he was nothing but affable now as they exchanged pleasantries. Mr. Makishima’s friendship should have attested to such a change as he greeted his old friend.

By the bench at the entrance of the milliner’s shop, Akane spotted Shion’s familiar blonde head bent closely towards a familiar figure. Miss Sasayama was smiling at something Shion must have said, an easy lightness in her expression that seemed strange only because she had never seen it before. Shion caught Akane watching them, a little surprised before she lifted her hand in a friendly wave. Miss Sasayama caught her line of sight and the easiness dropped for she moved back from Shion and nodded stiffly at Akane in recognition.

“I’m afraid Mika and I have to take our leave for I see our sister waiting for us in the distance,” Akane interjected in apology as she took hold of Mika’s hand and motioned her towards the milliner’s.

“It’s not yet 4!” she whined under her breath.

“Shion is waiting,” Akane muttered indiscernibly.

Lieutenant Choe’s smiling expression did not waver. “A shame, Miss Tsunemori, for I was missing the company of dear childhood friends and was planning on inviting you all to the inn for some refreshments. But of course, we shall not keep you.”

They all said their farewells, Mika being dramatically woeful as she expressed her regrets at missing a chance to drink because of her boring sister.

Akane turned to Mr. Makishima last. He did not bow this time. Instead, he reached out a hand to her and Akane balked for a brief second before gingerly placing hers in his. Strangely enough, he shook it as if she was a man. And then before her thoughts could wire together, he lifted it to kiss her knuckles as if to remind her that he hadn’t forgotten that she wasn’t.

The humor in his eyes seemed almost dangerous as they trained themselves on her. Men usually regarded her with distant amusement or puzzlement but rarely did they ever look at her with such fancy that if she wasn’t careful, she’d be easily consumed and he would indulge himself without apology. Her pulse sped as it did in confrontation of any challenge but his dare did not seem to be with the intent of intimidating her as much as it was an invitation for her to join his troublemaking.

“I hope the faeries don’t stake their claim before I can get the chance to encounter you again, Miss Tsunemori.”

Akane felt any witty rejoinder leave her as she flustered. “As do I, Mr. Makishima.”

* * *

“Save for that old codger attacking Yoshika, the whole trip wasn’t such a waste as I sighted upon a beautiful dress in the catalog while I was perusing. If you two were out of your wits thinking of what to gift me for my birthday, you now have your answer. And I’m sure Akane found joy in the encounter as well to receive such a fortunate learning opportunity to flirt with the man like some green debutante who just had her first season.”

“You were flirting?” Shion asked as if Mika had just suggested that Akane had stripped naked in the plaza.

She could feel her face heating. “I was not—”

“She was practically mooning over him—” Mika interjected.

“We were conversing about his business!”

“Yes, that sounds about the extent of your skill in flirtation.”

“You were flirting!” Shion remarked with delayed delight. “Come now, Akane, we are only teasing. Seldom do I hear of you expressing interest—”

“Yes, yes titter your heads off as you like. I’ll leave you to it.” Akane trudged forward ahead of her sisters, clearing the path leading to their gate. The hens clucked at her in greeting, picking at the ground as she strode past, her temper a little blistering as she entered the house.

“Mama, we’ve arrived! As you ordered,” she called out and muttered under her breath as she momentarily untied her boots to stamp the dirt out of them by whacking the soles against the doorstep, “And my poor ego no worse for the wear of course if anyone cares.”

“I see your inclination to trek through the weeds and mud has not wavered with age, Akane.”

Akane looked up in surprise, dropping her boots, as she regarded the man who was watching her by the archway of their hall.

His hair had grown longer, she thought distantly.

She scrambled in her curtsy, wondering in brief absurdness that she was barefoot in their first encounter after nearly a decade.

Her sister’s muted chatter grew louder as they approached behind her, nearly bumping into Akane as they entered the threshold and immediately stilled when they caught sight of their visitor. They gaped unabashedly.

Shion was the first to break the silence with some sense of dignity. “Nobuch—I mean, Mr. Ginoza. It is a surprise to see you. We weren’t expecting...that is—”

“I apologize for my unexpected appearance. I was en route to the capital for some business and decided to stop by here for a visit.”

“For how long?” Akane asked bluntly, uncaring of Shion’s discreet nudge at her rudeness.

“For as long as he needs!” their mother intervened with a little jittery nervousness as she entered from the kitchens. She herded the three to approach when they did nothing but stare dumbly at him.

“Come now, girls, come! Don’t just gawk there standing. Welcome your cousin back home!”

Once, his green eyes had been emblematic of her comfortable childhood. But they fixed at her now behind the frames of his spectacles, and Akane had never felt before so untethered and unfamiliar, a guest, in her own house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, mr. ginoza is the dreaded cousin lol
> 
> i originally planned it to be tougane but the thought of yuki potentially being paired off with that bastard made me cringe so gino it is! he's more self-assured but just as thick-headed as mr. collins. as such, his relationship with the tsunemori sisters is a little more complex.


	4. resentful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akane attends the weirdest ball of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one year later.... posts 16k chapter... sorry :L

Mrs. Tanaka, the good old bird, didn’t skimp on supper.

And better yet, it was Akane’s favorite: breaded chicken and miso soup. It was a shame that it tasted next to nothing in her mouth as the family pushed their food around their plates in the thickness of a discomfiting silence.

Across from her, Mr. Ginoza sipped carefully, either too aware or completely oblivious to the awkwardness of his presence.

“So...how fare your travels, Mr. Ginoza?” her mother started with a winning smile. If there was anything Akane could fault her for it wasn’t her ability to create conviviality out of total silence.

“Well enough.”

He continued to eat, ignorant or uncaring to continue the conversation. The utensils clattered loudly in its place.

“How good to hear,” Mrs. Tsunemori bravely attempted again. “And your benefactress?”

“Lady Kasei is also well.”

“Splendid news.”

Another silence settled over the dinner table and for once, she pitied her mother’s helpless look. At the head of the table, Mr. Tsunemori continued to eat peaceably as if unfettered by the mood.

But Akane knew her father.

He often took his ledger with him to occupy his attention while he ate but propriety banished it back to his office. He was unsettled by Mr. Ginoza’s presence—less on the man himself but the possible fate he represented. Having no male sons in the Tsunemori line, the house and the property around it would be entailed to the closest male living relative. And there was no guarantee that said relative would begrudge to support his distant cousins if they stayed unmarried upon their father’s death.

Her unabashed study returned to Mr. Ginoza. He had grown more than a head taller and while he had eased into his admittedly regal looks from the ungainly juvenile Akane had befriended more than a decade ago, there was an opaqueness to his features and regard. Nobuchika had been pricklier but warmer in youth. Adulthood and responsibility had dulled his imagination and wit into rote politeness and matter-of-fact efficiency.

It was not always thus, and remembering that, Akane couldn’t help her sense of displacement as she continued to eat. She listened half-heartedly as her mother and Shion painfully climbed up a conversation with the man.

Surprisingly, the only saving grace was Mika.

“Are we having dessert, Mama? If so, may I save it for later so I don’t have to sit here longer?”

The comment was ill-attempted but Akane felt her honesty. While Mika was aware of what Mr. Ginoza represented, Akane was certain that the only memory Mika carried of the man was as her awkward and long-suffering music tutor. To regard him with complete apprehension seemed absurd.

Mrs. Tsunemori’s face cottoned with red splotches as she almost choked on her soup. “Mika! Such ill manners at the table.”

Mr. Ginoza didn’t acknowledge the comment nor Mrs. Tsunemori’s embarrassment, as if he was willfully ignoring the show of rudeness through sheer force of obliviousness alone. A younger version would have had a verbal barb at hand. Instead, this version folded his napkin neatly before clearing his throat as if to make an announcement.

“Well, I’m assuming you’re all wondering what I’m doing here.”

“Yes, here we sit pins, needles, bated breath, etcetera,” Akane interjected mildly.

He didn’t look at her but just for a moment his face cast over with unexpected exasperation as if he was all too aware of the Tsunemori sisters’ usual song and dance. It was the most genuine thing she’d seen him express since his arrival. For a moment, she felt a sort of kinship with the boy of his youth until he blandly continued to talk as if she hadn’t spoken.

“As you all know, I am very much indebted to Lady Kasei for her sponsorship. As such, I have taken the responsibility of caring for her family's properties in India. My ship leaves the dock in a little more than three months so I do not have the luxury to indulge for long here before I have to finalize the details of my departure.”

“India! Why, that’s so far away!” Mrs. Tsunemori cried out. Anywhere fifty kilometers outside of their town was considered a new country to her mother; India might as well be another planet entirely.

“You mean to move permanently?”

“No. I shall return eventually but my job requires me to settle for some time. Lady Kasei’s late husband holds investments that she has entrusted onto me to personally oversee. There is business there that cannot be attended to by mere correspondence alone and the wealth of such properties can be easily mishandled without personal attentiveness.”

“That is quite a duty to carry,” Mr. Tsunemori evaluated, speaking for the first time.

“Lady Kasei has been generous with her trust and while it is no mere trifle, the duty is a little thing compared to her graciousness with my background.”

The unspoken weight hung in the silence following his words. It was common if not unspoken knowledge that Mr. Ginoza’s name was written by law and not by blood. He had been the yet-to-be born tagalong of her mother who married Mr. Tsunemori’s distant relative, the elder Mr. Ginoza. The younger’s blood father had been killed in battle more than a decade ago.

Akane had only known that man by mention. From the scarce few facts her mother could garner after wheedling her husband, Mr. Masaoka was a military man of poor standing who had fallen in love above his station with Mr. Ginoza’s mother. Her father had outrightly refused his permission for the two to marry. The scandal of it was exacerbated by Mr. Ginoza’s conception out of wedlock, an unborn bastard legitimized only by the grace of his stepfather who married his mother out of mercy.

However much he owned the name, there would always be whispers of his parentage.

“So to what do we owe this momentary stop in your trip?” her father asked when no one had spoken for a while.

For the first time, Mr. Ginoza looked self-conscious but he answered evenly if not rather slowly, “Moving to India is no light matter. It will be quite some time before I return to this country so I wish to give a proper farewell for my cousins.”

He cast a look at all of them, his gaze snagging on Akane last. He neither smiled nor frowned and she did not exactly know what to make of his statement. If he wished for their company, why did he not visit more frequently after he graduated? It was not as if his residence was an insurmountable distance away. Too deep in her thoughts to respond, she barely heard Mrs. Tsunemori’s comments in the muffle of conversation that emerged.

“Well, I am sure that your stay will be a happy and fruitful one,” she said rather meaningfully.

Shion’s pleasant rejoinder followed before Akane could wonder at her mother’s tone. “We’ll be happy to entertain you, cousin. I’m sure you’d be diverted seeing just how much our little town has changed the past years.”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to. It’s the same old busybodies as far as I’m concerned,” Mika scoffed.

“I’m sure your old friends in the town would be happy to re-meet your acquaintance.”

Mr. Ginoza nodded at Shion. “I certainly hope that time has not severed such ties completely.”

“Well, in that regard, we wish you nothing but luck in your course,” Mrs. Tsunemori fluttered.

Akane caught the words, “Because you’ll need it,” mid-thought in Mika’s head before Akane intervened with a look of her own. Mika made a face as if she understood that such words might be a little too hurtful and kept her tongue.

She might not be friends with the man but he was still family, no matter how distant of a cousin he was.

* * *

The night tottered on, becoming easier as they settled in the sitting room. Mr. Ginoza was all too welcome to leave them to their usual if not muted antics as he borrowed her father’s lap desk to quietly write some notes. If she narrowed her eyes and blurred her eyesight, the scene before her could have easily been years ago during the yearly occasions he had visited them for the summer during their youth.

Shaken out of her thoughts by the sound of her name, Akane was called to take Mika’s place and continue from the tail end of her narration. Reading out loud from an old book of fairy tales was one of the pastimes the ladies indulged in regularly after supper. Whoever was the most theatrical and incited the most laughs was the victor. As such, Akane was the usual winner, if only for the fact that she had the broadest range and imagination of voices for all the characters. Mika usually was the one who resisted the most to her attempts and Akane often resorted to underhanded methods, which, of course, included tickling her until she grew breathless and surrendered.

“I yield! I yield! You fiend!” Mika crawled away as she leaned towards Shion’s side on the loveseat for protection.

Shion stroked her youngest sister’s hair good-naturedly. “Akane, this is the third time this week you’ve cheated.”

“Since when is resourcefulness cheating?”

“Since yesterday!” Mika shot out.

“Don’t you three ever tire this late at night?” Their mother looked up from her embroidery with exasperation.

“Let them have their fun, my dear.” Mr. Tsunemori was deep in his own book but Akane could see him occasionally look up at their display with some amusement.

“Quite honestly, you should all find quieter hobbies. I do not blame Mr. Ginoza for not involving himself with your frippery.”

The named suspect lifted his head at the mention of his name. He raised his eyebrows as the claim settled on him. “That’s not my intention certainly. I didn’t want to neglect important matters before retiring and make for a poor guest by alienating myself from you all if I kept to Mr. Tsunemori’s study. But I see I have done so anyway regardless of my intention.”

He shuffled his papers into a neat stack and regarded the sisters. “Perhaps in the spirit of your activity, we might do better by your mother and read out loud from something more fitting for ladies of your status and age. Perhaps, the scripture? Or this enlightening book on etiquette and accomplishment for the genteel? It contains a section written by an accredited dancing master that I’m sure you all would find edifying. I have a copy in my valise upstairs that I’d be happy to lend should you wish for it.”

Akane sincerely attempted not to make a face and barely succeeded when she caught Mika’s eyes who made no such effort of her own. She and Shion were the ones who were practically attached to the hip but it was a special connection of rare immaturity with Mika she shared that if one burst out in titters during the worst inopportune moment, the other was certain to follow. Shion was well aware of this for Akane heard the long-suffering note of exasperation when she directed her smile to their cousin.

“Either sounds entirely welcome. Does it not, ladies?”

_Get ahold of yourselves, you two._

“Why, at last, something more sensible,” Mrs. Tsunemori chirped out with some satisfaction.

Akane would have been grateful for her sister’s level-headedness to win in this moment but as they all settled for Mr. Ginoza’s long, dry oration of the historical particularities of the cotillion’s dance development, the knowing accusation she directed in her glance to Shion was near audible. Shion for the most part pretended that her younger sisters were not occasionally shooting her annoyed looks.

Which of course naturally prompted Mika’s rather prim announcement under her breath as Mr. Ginoza drone on.

“Since you are at clear and full fault for indulging him in this riveting activity, you will be the one to play hostess to him this week.”

Shion whispered back, her tone mild, “You sound as if it is such a labor to be friendly to our cousin.”

“It is when he has been obviously replaced by an automaton. After supper, I was making polite chatter and asked him the very reasonable question of his pastimes and he looked at me like I had spoken in French.”

“Perhaps there’s a good reason,” she evaluated. “We do not know the efforts undertaken in the profession of law and it may be that he has no time for gaiety like we do.”

“A tragedy then that he has grown nearly as boring as Akane. Ouch!”

Mike glared at Akane who pretended she didn’t just pinch her. Mr. Ginoza looked up from the book with mild alarm.

“Is everything all right?”

“My hand slipped,” Akane offered lightly.

“You are making a habit of it,” Mika hissed under her breath.

“Shall I stop?” he asked with skepticism.

Akane smiled banally. “Please continue. Contredanse and gavotte were the last things I heard.”

Reluctantly, Mr. Ginoza resumed his lecture but not without giving them a wary glance first.

“So if I am playing hostess, what will your roles be?” Shion whispered a few minutes later when she caught herself nodding off.

“You’re certainly not expecting me to tag along the entire time,” Mika explained as if it was obvious. “I have plans with Kagami. Her family is escorting us to a travelling exhibit the Toumas are hosting in their parlor with a picnic afterwards. Plus with her brother in town, there’ll be many get-togethers and outings organized in the miltia’s honor this week.”

“Why are we hearing about this just now? Did you ask Papa for permission?” They looked at their father who made no attempts to hide as he fully slept with his book open in front of him.

“Well, no, not yet. But Kagami’s whole family will be there. It’s not a matter deserving of worry, Shion.”

“Yes, it is because that means Papa will force one of us to go with you,” Akane interjected.

“I am old enough. I’ve had my debut! I don’t understand why I am required to have one of you hover—”

“My apologies. Your attention seems preoccupied elsewhere so perhaps it is best that I stop. Shall we engage in another activity best suited for your attentiveness?” Mr. Ginoza’s dry voice cut through their hissed whispers. He sounded so much like himself for a moment that Akane almost smiled.

“Mr. Ginoza, how do you feel about picnics?” Shion asked, already a charming host, even if her voice did hold a tinge of desperation to stop him from his course.

His eyebrows drew together in confusion. “You want to throw a picnic? At this moment?”

And so it was a few days later that Akane found herself sandwiched between Shion and Mr. Ginoza during lunch at the Toumas’ garden. Their house was neatly situated near the river, affording their outside meal a glittering view. Mika was at a distance, chattering excitedly with Lieutenant Choe and Kagami. Although Akane was certain that Mika was still smarting that her plans with her friends had turned into a family outing that involved everybody. Mr. Ginoza was in heavy discussion with the eldest Touma brother who had attended Eton at an earlier period. They spoke of Spinoza, which would have been interesting to partake in if not for the fact that Mr. Touma had been giving sour looks every time she interrupted.

So it was that she joined Shion who was conversing with Miss Touma.

“Dear Shion, I hear you’ve yet again caught the attention of a certain Mr. Sasayama who has taken residence in the manor. I do wish you would save some gentlemen’s company for the rest of us.”

Though she was smiling there was a true edge underlying her voice. Akane’s hackles raised but Shion had already intervened with a smile of her own. “Dear Keiko, I’m certain that any gentleman has enough mind to discern which company they prefer. I wouldn’t want to imply that our male counterparts are too ill-equipped as to mindlessly indulge any young lady’s friendship they found beneath them.”

Akane bit her lip and turned away so the others wouldn’t see her amusement.

Second helpings were served and passed around. She started to eat then realized what was in her mouth. She cast a peek at Mr. Ginoza who unsurprisingly was staring at his own bowl of stew with a smothered distaste in recognition of one of his hated ingredients.

He always was a picky eater. It almost made her laugh.

Discreetly, she pushed her bowl towards his, ignoring his alarmed look of confusion as she motioned to her bowl with her eyes. He must have eventually understood because he started to transfer the bits of mulukhiyah from his own stew to hers. It was a quick exchange, something they’d done with experienced skill to keep it from the scrutiny of the hostess.

They spoke no words but she could occasionally feel his eyes on her from time to time for the rest of the meal.

Afterwards, the company parted to engage in various activities. Mika insisted on staying to play bowls and pins with her friends. Shion and Miss Touma announced their intention to walk by the road next to the river to settle their stomachs and Akane was compelled to join them. She kept a safe distance behind, her gaze absent-mindedly studying the glitter of the water. Walks always calmed her and she wished she had brought a book for she found no greater joy than to read in the openness of nature. Her daydreams overtook her.

“Mr. Makishima!”

Was that her daydream come to life?

Akane hurried her pace and found Miss Touma greeting a familiar figure who was reclining against a tree with an open book on his lap. They exchanged pleasantries for a bit before his amber eyes passed over Shion then landed firmly on her. Akane felt the impulse to fix her hair but dispelled it, sensing her sister’s immediate interest in this man she had only ever known of in mention.

“Mr. Makishima,” she greeted, her voice even.

“You two are acquainted?” Miss Touma said with distaste.

Akane ignored her and made introductions. “My sister, Shion Tsunemori. Shion, Mr. Makishima.”

“A pleasure, sir,” Shion said with a polite smile.

His gaze came to her cursorily with a nod before latching back onto Akane. It quickened her heart to realize that not even Shion and her beauty could keep his attention. When men first met her sister, they usually lingered. Not this man.

“Mr. Makishima, we missed you at the picnic today,” Miss Touma interjected. “My brother was looking quite forward to your company.”

“You’ll have to give Kozaburo my apologies. Such a wonderful book has captured all my attention today.”

“And what book should I give my envy towards?” she teased.

“ _The Sorrows of Young Werther_.” He directed his question to Akane, “Have _you_ read it?”

Akane smiled, amused that he was so specific with his attention. “No, I have not.”

“Well, I’d be happy to lend it after I finish.”

Akane was about to reply when their attention was snatched onto the nearing sound of hoofbeats. Two riders from the distance at the opposite side of the river were cantering towards their direction and with creeping disbelief, she recognized their familiar faces as they approached.

“Is that…?” Shion’s words trailed off as Mr. Sasayama halted his horse, his grinning face clear even from where they stood.

“Dear Miss Tsunemori, what a gift for you to emerge like a sprite out of the wood during this wonder of a day. And Miss Akane and Miss Touma! Even more of a wonder!”

Mr. Kougami halted to a stop next to his friend, while Mr. Sasayama gesticulated rather wildly as he talked. “It is a happy coincidence that I came across all of you as I had intended to send a post of my invitation. But since you are here, it would be more fitting for me to extend it in person. I am to hold a ball in two weeks time at the manor as thanks for the gracious welcome the town has bestowed upon us the first days we arrived.”

“A ball? Truly?” Miss Touma fluttered in excitement. Their chatter continued with brightening energy as Mr. Sasayama regaled them with details of what he had planned. Akane felt swept along with her own enthusiasm but was kept from fully joining when she caught sight of Mr. Kougami’s face.

His expression was the very picture of his usual unhappiness but the effect of his eyes almost took her breath away. Such dislike—

No, utter hatred at the target of his attention.

To Mr. Makishima who placidly stared back as if he cared not a whit to have a man look at him with near murder in his eyes. With his unruffled gaze level, he stood, his hands in his pockets as he positioned himself next to her. The effect was instantaneous. If a man’s eyes could kill, Mr. Makishima would already be dead where he stood. For a short moment, Mr. Kougami directed his fire onto her. Rather than hatred, it was...something else. Something she couldn’t place but definitely something she had never seen a man like him express. Before she could wonder more, he had turned his horse away and started galloping off. Mr. Sasayama stuttered to momentary halt in his surprise as he watched his friend leave without him.

“Well, that marks my exit, I presume. Please invite anyone you know! I anticipate much merriment. A farewell to you all, my dear friends!”

So he left, leaving a whirlwind in his place.

“Oh, we have to return to the house! There is so much to do. So much to arrange,” Miss Touma started listing off what she needed in preparation. Shion took the chance to usher her to their original path back. With a knowing and twinkling look at Akane, she led the other woman with much distraction.

“Tell me of what you plan to wear, Miss Touma…”

Their chattering receded as they walked off and Akane was all too grateful at the opportunity her sister presented. She could only look at the man next to her, her very question in her eyes.

“I had hoped you’d miss that.”

“He looked ready to jump off his horse and tackle you.”

He laughed pleasantly. “That is a light way of putting it.”

Akane’s curiosity was a near overflowing thing. “Please don’t make me beg for the explanation.”

“You would resort to that? Would you come kneeling?” She was only joking but Mr. Makishima looked at her as if the genuine prospect was of great interest to him.

“He and his friends have been in company with my family. I only mean to know for their sake.”

“And because you are curious for an interesting story.”

“I cannot pretend.”

“Take care, sweet, for curiosity does bite back.”

He smiled with a little danger as he led her to a flatter plain of grass. “You need not kneel. But I would like to rest if I am to indulge this heavy burden.”

Mr. Makishima untied his hair and let it fan around him as he reclined on the grass, the very picture of free carelessness. He patted the spot next to him and she could only arch an eyebrow with amusement.

“I’m afraid I don’t have the privilege of wearing a dark enough fabric to avoid the stains that I’m certain will mark this dress.” She motioned to her white muslin.

Mr. Makishima sat up quickly. “And what poor manners I have for my oversight.”

He shrugged his jacket off before laying it next to him as a makeshift buffer from the grass.

“I couldn’t possibly.”

“Yes, you could.”

Reluctantly, she joined his side, feeling very aware of how little distance there was between their arms. She felt so much like a child committing something so juvenile; her giddiness was a delinquent thing.

“So where to start?”

Akane stared unabashedly at his profile when he closed his eyes. The paleness of his hair and face cast an otherworldly glow to his features, rendering him like near marble when he didn’t move.

“Hm. I don’t think I can start my story now with such a close study on my face,” he mused.

Akane’s embarrassment warred with her pleasure. He opened his eyes, mischief on his smirking face.

“I can’t fully apologize so I won’t even attempt.”

“I’m sure if you kept at your study, I would have learned how to endure given time.”

She quieted her amusement. “No, no. I will behave. I do not want to do injustice to your story with my impertinence.”

He watched her for a moment before he spoke, as if confirming something he had suspected, “I’m beginning to learn that you are far too good than you should be.”

His tone was strange but before Akane could pick at what he meant, he started to speak, the spell of his voice luring her full attention.

“So where to start?” he repeated. “We were raised together. My father was a steward, a man of poor birth who had worked for the elder Mr. Kougami for years. My father’s employment was the only reason Shinya and I grew up together. It is quite a cliche, I’ll admit. The prince and the pauper, best of friends, brothers in arms. Brothers in all but blood and name. We read philosophy and studied literature, planning for when we could come of age and change the ways of society with my ideas and his inheritance.

"But when we reunited after he returned from university, he had changed. His temper had grown quicker and his regard of me cooled. Still, when I called on him to set motion to our plans, he followed me to the city. We worked with academics, artists, renegades, poor folk who wished to make lasting change. But I could see him grow restless, almost grow in distaste of what we were doing and the poverty of how we were living.

“It is a harsh lesson to be forced to learn firsthand the power of the conditions that have been put in place before your birth. I did not ask to be born poor, no more than you had asked to be born female. And yet, we are punished for it. Dare we extend a hand to reach for more, we are slapped away with mockery if we are not successful enough. With irrational fear if we are. What nerve do we have to demand a place on the table?"

He spoke methodically but she wondered whether the frustration and disappointments were her own or an echo from his side.

“And so he abandoned the cause. But I didn’t fully realize the breadth of his resentment at that time. His father had always been harsh on him and perhaps some instinctive likemindedness redirected all of that unspent affection towards me. I’d been blessed with his sponsorship to a university of my choosing and had been written onto his will to inherit some funds. But after his death, Shinya had contested the claim and prevented me from seeing even a pence of that money.”

“He cut you off?” she couldn’t help but interrupt. “From resentment alone?”

“Perhaps the resentment of his father’s displaced affections was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But I think it was his sister’s. It is one thing to co-opt a paternal bond but it is another to marry into a family and taint good breeding with gutter blood. You see, she and I had nurtured a secret tenderness over the years. When I confronted him after he cut me off, I rather impulsively announced my intention to marry her. And... I’ll spare you the details of the aftermath except to say that resentment became a light term for what he truly felt for me.”

Akane felt a twinge of loss that his heart had been taken by someone else after all but it was not so grievous as the sympathy she felt for him at his ill treatment by a supposed friend. A brother, even.

“I am reasoning that this did not end happily, seeing as you had told me of your marriage to someone else.”

He nodded. “Even as she pleaded and begged him to forgive my standing, he was too unforgiving to acquiesce. Not even the helpless cries of his sister could move his pride.”

Akane paused in her attention, her thoughts snagging a little. She did not want to fully contest Mr. Makishima’s narration, who was taking great pains and trust to speak to her of his tragedies. But instinctive feelings told her differently. While she carried an ill opinion of the man, it was difficult to conceive Mr. Kougami with enough vindictiveness to deprive a dear sister a chance at happiness. She did not think she had imagined the soft fondness in his voice whilst he spoke of writing to Miss Kougami.

Mr. Makishima must have registered her hesitation. The amber in his eyes seemed to gleam. “It is an effort, is it not? To reconcile what you know of a civil man with how much deep-seated feeling he can hide in his heart? We wear our masks for proper society, not realizing that the masks have become indistinguishable from our true selves. You mark yourself as a friend and hate with your entire being. You claim to loathe in order to cover your love. You call yourself a gentleman but are no better than a beast. I have learned that those with much to lose are the most cunning for they have the gift of convincing you all kinds of irrationality, the most dangerous being that your lack is deserved, even natural. And it is only too late that you realize you have been snared so completely by their logic that you are persuaded to stick a knife at your own back. One may smile, and smile…”

“And be a villain,” Akane finished, unable to help the cold dread in her stomach even as they lounged under the pleasant warmth of the afternoon. “So what knife did he have you stick onto yourself?”

“Well, our feelings could not be denied so she and I made plans to elope. And of course with my little means, what chance did I have to stand against everything he had at his disposal? He caught us in an inn on our way to Gretna Green, and the fight left me for good.”

She shook her head. “You have suffered such blows in your life.”

“The truth of the matter is: I would have forgiven him for worse if he could just own his misdeeds. But after my father’s death, there was no need for my return so he banished me far from the estate, likely so he did not have to face his ugliest sin every day. The truest pain is being apart from her, knowing that he has likely poisoned her against me, too.”

“But now you are here!” she cried out, suddenly sitting up as if struck by inspiration. “You have every right to be in society as he. Even more so!”

“You would champion me, Miss Tsunemori?” He looked up at her, a curious smile on his face.

“I’d come astride white stallion and all. We should do something. Even a man of his wealth shouldn’t be absolved under the eyes of the law.”

For a moment, a cloud passed over them and his smile took a strange shadow of meaning, one she instinctively picked up even as her mind couldn’t reason it. It left her a little disarmed but it couldn’t fully detract her from the course of her passion.

He chuckled at her heated face, his eyes narrowing in consideration of her. “While that is a sound method, he has not broken any laws. And even if he has, he has pocketed many friends in high places.”

“Then we should confront him. Expose him to society.”

“My sweet friend, your passion is a balm to my heart. But I would caution your ambition to confront him outright. I have known him longer than anyone, and I would not want you to fall prey to his wrath the same way I did. He is an analytical man of particular severity, so pointed in his attention with an obsessiveness that almost borders on insane lethality.”

“Lethality?” She stiffened in alarm.

“In truth? And I only tell you this because you have shown me so far that you have the constitution for such ugliness. But the man nearly succeeded in killing me.”

Shock gripped her so tightly. “What? How?”

“After he had caught us, he demanded a duel, as was his right. But how could I target a friend once so dear to me and deprive my love of her brother? So I aimed to delope and very clearly aimed for the ground, but he took his opportunity completely.” He tapped his temple. “It would have been clean, almost a mercy on his part, but perhaps some guiding force or credit to my fortunes urged me to move just in time. He missed only to nick my shoulder, but I know, looking at him afterwards that he was not satisfied with just that.”

“How could you tell?”

“Because right afterwards, he proceeded to eradicate me in every other way to make up for it. My name was shunned even in middling society. No broker would lend to me, afraid they were of his influence. I did not know what stories he concocted to poison me against our mutual friends but they shunned my company, casting me a pariah in every respectable corner of the city. No one would have me. If not for the compassion and mercy of my late wife, I would probably be residing in the slums. Certainly I wouldn’t be here, conversing with you about morbid subjects in the light of such a pleasant afternoon.”

She shook her head fiercely. “There must be something we can do.”

He waved a hand as if to dismiss everything he had told her quite easily. “So ends that sad, sorry tale. Before my marriage, I had lived it and felt it completely: the full breadth of the injustice that you are feeling a portion of now. But in the light of day, I simply wish to live in honor of my late wife. Revenge is best left to the heroes of the stories I publish.”

Her short-lived crusade grounded to a halt with his words but could not be tamped down completely. She sighed, feeling restless already when she lied back down, this time on her side as she faced him. “If not that, then please consider attending Mr. Sasayama’s ball. What better revenge than to affirm of your successes with your presence?”

“I would not be welcomed with warmth.”

“Then I would stand with you proudly as your peer and your friend if you needed me.”

“You would risk involving yourself with a labeled reprobate?”

“I would risk much to do the right thing.”

He stared at her for quite some time that she began to grow increasingly self-conscious.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Only musing at my luck that I managed to encounter such a dear and loyal friend in the dress shop that day.”

She fully blushed now and she willed her foolish infatuation to settle, knowing his heart lay elsewhere. “Perhaps it is she who is the lucky one.”

“I can make a good argument for my case. Thank the faeries she hasn’t been whisked away just yet,” he said, his widening smile handsome in the afternoon sunlight.

* * *

Akane would have been a right liar if she claimed indifference the next two weeks.

Perhaps it was the promise and energy of the upcoming ball that had infected her entire family in the days leading up to it.

Even Mr. Ginoza seemed more disarmed. He did not join the ladies in their frivolity but he appeared less guarded in general. Soon as he settled in the everyday quotidian routines of the Tsunemoris, it was as if no time had passed and the family treated him as they had during his summer visits before he entered university. Only Akane kept her distance, more because she did not know what to say to him and she sensed that he did not know what to say to her either when they were left alone to converse without the added buffer of another person. It was a strange thing to be merely an acquaintance to a friend who was once so dear. Sometimes, he treated her as if she was a passing stranger. Sometimes, while discussing his work with Mr. Tsunemori, he would read out loud his case files if she was in the room—as if he knew it would interest her to overhear.

Nevertheless, the fortnight passed with an interwoven braid of monotony and flurry. Dresses were mended, chickens were fed, the garden tended.

Life passed, until the night of the desired date arrived.

Mika had complained for several days about being made to wear Shion’s hand-me-downs. But Mrs. Tanaka’s wizardry had mended it into something no more grand but certainly respectable. Her smile widened as she turned in a circle and inspected herself in the floor mirror. Perhaps, it was the magic of the night that cast a new glow onto their forms. Akane had never felt more like a lady of refinement and grace than in her refashioned dress, white and soft with small freesias laced through the carefully styled wisps of her hair. The three sisters stared at each other before dissolving into youthful giggles.

Their excitement bubbled further when they arrived at Mr. Sasayama’s manor, which seemed similarly aglow as all rooms were alight and packed with merriment and music. Akane was not one to be taken by riches but even she could not help her wonder at the finery and regality of the interior as they entered and waited in line to greet the host.

Mr. Sasayama’s effusive charm seemed to double as he and his sister greeted the Tsunemoris. Of course, his special attention was all on Shion whose beauty seemed to magnify tenfold by her new dress and the ethereal light of the evening. After pleasantries were exchanged, Akane extricated herself, her eyes searching for Mr. Makishima, only to find Yuki in the arms of an unknown gentleman in the ballroom. She waited near the wallflowers, charmed that her friend was committed to enjoying the full breadth of the night. When the reel finished, Yuki joined her on the wall, her cheeks pink with exertion.

“You were dancing.” Akane bit her lip as she smiled cheekily.

“I was dancing.”

“Who was the young man?”

“Just some visiting youth from the other town who decided to gatecrash. Mr. Sasayama didn’t have the heart to turn him away. I daresay I think I’ve forgotten his name already,” Yuki laughed helplessly, the dizzy magic of the dance making her giddy. Her face turned teasing as she looped their arms together. “And where is _your_ young man?”

“I’m not certain. I’ve not seen him yet.”

Akane had only given Yuki cursory information about Mr. Makishima and his background, leaving out the intimate and dark specifics. But her regard for him could not be suppressed even in such an economical overview and Yuki had picked it up immediately.

“Have _you_ seen him?”

“I’m afraid not. But no worry needed. The night is just starting and I’m certain that by the end of tonight, he’ll have you willing in his waiting arms, ready to sweep you off your feet.”

She laughed at her friend’s usual dramatics. “I would not extend that far. In the meantime, let’s see the other ballroom. I think I spotted some confectionaries at the table there.”

The two entered, immediately heading for the food. While pouring punch, Akane cringed as she overheard Mrs. Tsunemori’s familiar voice ring out from the din and boast of the surety of Mr. Sasayama’s interest in Shion, as if their engagement had already been arranged with the emphasis of what a truly advantageous marriage they would make.

“I fear my mother is keen on outdoing her previous performance from the last dance,” she whispered. Her friend looked to where Mrs. Tsunemori was taking command of a group of women.

“Ah. Different ballroom…”

“Same, old scandal,” she finished. “I wish she would take care of her claims. It is one thing to say it in the confidence of a friend but another to do so in public.”

Her friend patted her back in sympathy. “To be fair to your mother, do her statements hold some nugget of truth?”

Akane’s eyes cast over the room until they landed on Mr. Sasayama, his sister, and Shion cloistered together. Shion stood in the middle, Mr. Sasayama’s head bent towards her while Miss Sasayama surveyed the room, a bored expression on her face. Akane watched her sister laugh at something the man must have said. Additionally, she noted the surreptitious interest of the other men who looked envious that Mr. Sasayama was the lucky target of Shion’s attention. But in truth, Akane could not see if he held a special interest in her sister’s heart. Mr. Sasayama was certainly taken with her but if Akane spoke true, he could have been any other man and Shion would not have changed her behavior.

Akane secretly held the theory that the day she would consider her sister to be in love would be the morning when Shion would forget to groom herself into meticulous perfection.

“Shion is committed to playing her part,” she could only say.

Yuki did not need added explanation. “If there is any obstacle in confirming the engagement, it won’t be from her side certainly.”

Mr. Sasayama seemed to think so too for he boldly stepped closer to whisper something in her ear. As if that wasn’t scandalous enough, he had taken her palm to his as if to use the guise of comparing their sizes in order to hold her hand. While any gossip could glean something of interest from such an exchange, that wasn’t what sparked Akane’s study. Her eyes drifted to the right and found Miss Sasayama, whose normally placid countenance tightened with a smothered emotion before she took her leave of the room. As if she was vibrating disapproval.

As if she was...angry?

But that couldn’t be right, could it?

“What? What are you seeing?” Yuki whispered, immediately registering Akane’s confusion.

“I’m...I’m not entirely certain.”

Was that the reason for Mr. Sasayama’s reluctance to commit? Because his sister disapproved? But there was no logic to such an outcome. If anything, it seemed to be the opposite when considering Miss Sasayama’s behavior and temperament towards Shion. Akane had never seen the woman look open, more affectionate than in Shion’s presence. Would it not thrill any woman to have her dear friend and dear brother marry?

“Akane!” Yuki hissed under her breath, tugging on the other’s arm.

“What?”

“It’s Lieutenant Choe!”

Blinking out of her thoughts, Akane spotted the lieutenant’s familiar red coat of the militia mingle with the crowd and disappear through the throng. Her sister momentarily forgotten, she and Yuki dropped their cups and increased their pace without outright running.

“Lieutenant,” Akane couldn’t help but call as they approached. The man didn’t look surprised to see them there as he disentangled himself from the circle of people he’d joined. He smiled warmly in greeting.

“Miss Tsunemori. Miss Funahara. A pleasure to see you ladies tonight. I hope you are enjoying the festivities. Mr. Sasayama certainly knows how to throw a party, does he not?”

“That he does.”

“I am certain this one will be the talk of the town for quite some time.” His smile dimmed a little as he considered Yuki. “I am sorry to hear from your mother that your father was too ill to attend tonight. Please do accept my condolences. I’m certain so many people will be missing his boisterous charm.”

Akane turned her head towards her friend, alarmed. “Your father is ill?”

“Never mind that now.” Yuki waved it off easily. “Lieutenant, we cannot pretend we have approached you without an agenda. We were seeing if you knew Mr. Makishima’s whereabouts tonight.”

“Ah, yes. Poor old chap had been called back to the capital a week ago. He was quite sorry to leave abruptly. But alas, the whims of business and all.”

Yuki frowned. “Did he say when he would return?”

“He did not give a definite date. But such is the way of the man. He flits in and out like an apparition without much warning.”

“Was there a reason for his abrupt departure?”

“Some urgent matters at his work required his attendance. But, ah, I’m sure talk of business and economics isn’t within the scope of young ladies’ minds.”

Akane’s smile was all politeness. “Well, thank you for the information, Lieutenant. It was most helpful. We’ll leave you to your previous company.”

She clutched at Yuki’s arm to pull her along, not waiting for the man to reply. Her friend’s face was pensive as they walked through the parlor. “Is it not strange that he did not at least write you a letter? Or a note that he could have passed along?”

“Perhaps he forgot,” Akane said dismissively. “What has befallen your father?”

“A slight fever. It started this morning and worsened as the afternoon progressed. So he sent my mother and I to the carriage by ourselves and stayed home as an added precaution. It is no heavy matter.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I’m certain it’s only a cold that will last for three days at most. Don’t pull that face at me, Akane. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think it merited mention. There are certain limits to friendship, even as close as ours. I do not inform you of the lace of my drawers, do I?”

Akane smiled weakly. “Certainly not. And I thank you that you have that consideration for me. However, I only mean that if you ever wish to talk, even if it is about your undergarments, you are more than free to do so.”

“Ah, the benefits of friendship. And speaking of, does it not concern you that your new friend has shown you very little consideration?”

“No, it does not. Yes, it’s unfortunate that he’s not here. But what can one do about it?”

“You know, you would be more convincing if you didn’t look so disappointed. A week is more than enough time to post a missive from the capital. Especially if you made arrangements together.”

“We are not courting, Yuki. And he never confirmed that he would attend. There are certain limits to friendship,” she quoted, earning her friend’s unimpressed sidelong glance as they continued to meander through the rooms. “We don’t owe each other notices about our whereabouts.”

“I know that. But all I can say is that a lack of courtesy might speak to character. And I advise you to take care with the man.”

“You needn’t worry about me. I can see clearly enough for myself—”

She gasped as she bumped heavily into a near solid obstacle and would have tripped forward if said obstacle had not taken her elbows and righted her figure to stability.

“Akane, are you all right?” she heard Yuki behind her. A few surrounding guests cast her curious looks and whispered among themselves.

“I’m fine,” was what she meant to say until she picked her head up and found herself eye-to-eye with quite the last man she would have asked to meet tonight.

It was a near maddening thing that he looked even more elegant in the finery of new clothing. Surely Lucifer himself would have looked less appealing in evening dress. He stood so encompassing in her field of vision that the only thing that came to her mind was how tall he suddenly seemed. Was this the first time she’d ever had a proper look at him or had his shoulders always been this broad?

Not that she cared for such things, of course.

“Oh, Mr. Kougami,” she heard Yuki whisper when she came to her side.

“Miss Funahara,” he greeted even as he kept his gaze on Akane. “My apologies.”

“No harm meant.”

She was certain it was all her fault but she’d rather eat her own tongue than show deference to this man ever again. She realized he was still holding her wrists and her pointed look caused him to disengage with some reluctance. Akane was already scrambling in her head for a way out. “Well, Yuki and I should—”

“May I have the next dance, Miss Tsunemori?”

What?

The word “dance” and her name didn’t fully connect before she realized that she had frozen and was gaping at him quite stupidly. His face was unsmiling, but there was an inflection of something in the blue-gray of his eyes that stopped her from completely working out a way to reject him without ostracizing her family completely from the ballroom.

Was he actually concerned with her answer?

Surely some other person had taken hold of her mind, her mouth, her very spirit when she heard the solid affirmation of her “Yes.”

It was only when they had mutually departed for the meantime that she registered Yuki’s shocked and gleeful face round towards her. They pushed through the crowd, the unreality of the moment seeping into her as they found a quieter corner.

“He asked you to dance!” she crowed out the same time Akane demanded, a little unhinged, “Did I just say ‘yes’?”

“You did.” Her friend erupted into giggles. “Oh, I did not want to tell you this because I knew you would wonder at my sanity but can I confess how completely unsurprised I am? I thought I would melt onto the floor from the intensity of his regard upon you alone.”

Akane laughed disbelievingly. “Oh, well done. It’s too late now. I have gone past wondering to outright calling for the asylum warden.”

“You are the one with the logic of a barrister, dear Themis. Am I claiming anything beyond what’s reasonably possible?” she asked teasingly.

“Reasonably possible? Do you hear yourself? You were there when he insulted me the first night!”

“Minds change. Hearts change.”

“Yuki.” She wanted to inform her friend of what she knew in truth but it was not her story to tell so she held her tongue.

Her friend rolled her eyes, mistaking her grim expression for something else. “If you want a dull reason, he probably wants to be friendly for the sake of Mr. Sasayama or he’s interested in picking that head of yours and doesn’t quite know how. But I gather neither is the complete answer.”

“And from where did this blessed font of wisdom spring forth, dear Athena?” she asked, caught between being offended and curious.

“I wouldn’t wager a man like him does anything for a dull reason. And no gentleman looks at a lady like that unless she’d already visited his mind before this night.”

Despite her scandalous implications, Yuki sounded so certain and full of it that Akane couldn’t help the boisterous laughter that burst out of her. “You are completely ridiculous. Ridiculous. Here I thought my imagination was unruly.”

“Speak to me again at your wedding with the man, and we shall see who wears ridicule better.”

She shook her head. “The deepest circle of hell will freeze first before Mr. Kougami ever shows such an interest in me and my lowly prospects. And let heaven burn as well, if I ever return such sentiment to someone undeserving of it.”

“This is not the first time I’ve said this but I think you read too much.” Yuki patted her arm as if Akane was severely ill. “If you mean true, take care to caution your contempt.”

“I’m not seeking to scandalize the man, Yuki. It is just a dance.”

“Except when it is not,” she said lightly and Akane could not help but shake her head again as she followed her friend to the other room.

* * *

She spoke truly that such warm sentiments would be impossible, had all but confirmed the coldness of her feeling.

So Akane wondered at her nerves when she faced him across her place on the women’s side of the line. She felt the skip of her pulse as they exchanged the courtesy greeting of a gentleman and a lady. It was such a surreal experience to dance with each other in this very public room, amidst the entire bevy of the town’s eyes.

Akane felt she was dreaming.

But Mr. Makishima’s words, his long-suffering confession that afternoon, had sharpened the blurring of her head.

They circled each other first, his hand barely cradling hers in each pass. She refused to linger at the gentleness of that so she didn’t. He was a confident dancer, skilled in the sense that the movements were second nature. She mused this over in her head with a little amused exasperation at the unfairness of life. For all his rigidity in staying in one spot completely during the course of a social event, his movements belied an active physicality that correlated with the build of his shoulders and her previous note of his calloused hands. He moved as if he was used to laboring with an exertion of power and dexterity.

Akane tried not to be surprised again. She did not want to be surprised by this man. A small relief to be grounded then by the familiar dourness of his face and the stiff line of his eyebrows and mouth, as if he was enduring the activity with the dignity of a martyr being burned at the stake.

Why did a man who found displeasure in dancing with her even ask in the first place?

“Typically, dancing partners employ this time to better acquaint each other with the help of easy topics. Shall I start one or shall we continue to bear our silent burdens with stiff upper lips?” she asked when they came into contact.

He said nothing outright as they rounded the other couples. When he spoke in closer proximity, his voice was even in its usual staidness, the low timber of it resonating in her abdomen. “Is that generally accepted as a rule or one you have concocted for your own personal use?”

“Not so much a rule as it is simply a natural mechanic that occurs without needless thinking in well-mannered conversation. It’s quite easy, you see. You meet another person and you exchange your pleasantries. _Hello, how do you do? Look at all the lovely couples here. What fine crown molding this wall has. How’s the weather,_ etcetera etcetera until we are both forced to scramble for something clever to say or alternatively, pretend we have never said anything in the first place. The latter is ideal since we can then repeat our studied notes about the weather as needed until we reach the point in the conversation where we can politely extricate ourselves and depart, or faint until our faces have turned blue and the topic has fully exhausted our lungs. So shall I start the process or would you prefer to have your try at it first?”

Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but his mouth seemed to twitch a little in response.

“So this is the type of exchange you seek in your dancing partners?”

“Only when I’m fortunate.”

“And how is your luck faring tonight?”

Did he want her to stroke his ego? She nearly scoffed in answer but instead, she replied, “It’s relative.”

“To what?”

“To whether I end this dance stepping on my partner’s toes,” she said sweetly.

“You needn’t worry. You are an adequate partner and you’ve not stepped on me so far.”

Adequate? Why, catch her; she was swooning.

 _Don’t try your own luck_ , she wanted to snark.

“Well, I think we have fulfilled our required exchange for polite repartee and can now, with I’m sure much relief on both sides, recede to our similarly unsociable and taciturn personas for the next half hour,” she said instead.

Mr. Kougami did not respond promptly. But Akane garnered the notion that her sarcasm was not easily missed as she had initially believed.

“And what of the weather?”

“What of it?”

“We’ve yet to comment on it as you’d prescribed to be proper.”

It was Akane’s turn to be silent as she turned in unison with the gentleman to his left and willed her wits to catch up with her by the time she rejoined him. His expression and his voice alone remained unchanged but it seemed as if he was playing along with her mockery. She didn’t know what to make of it and she didn’t know what to make of the little flip in her stomach at the realization.

“By all means, how is the weather treating you, Mr. Kougami?” she asked casually.

“I don’t think of it. And you?”

“Dreadful.”

“How unfortunate. Do you favor the heat over the cold then?”

“Oh, the heat for certain. And yourself?

“I’ve no preference.”

They were separated once again as Akane circled in a moulinette with the three other dancers of her unit and he on the other side with his own.

“Are you close to fainting yet? Shall I fetch the smelling salts?” she couldn’t help but greet upon her return.

“I’m not certain. What shade of color is my face?”

Absurdly, she could feel a bubble of surprised laughter rise up her throat, an impulse she tamped down immediately. She had not expected his humor when all he had shown was the complete antithesis and, according to Mr. Makishima, utter betrayal and cruelty. That afternoon filled her mind and a sense of guilt washed over her for feeling a smidge of affinity towards this man. She made no further attempts to break the silence herself.

“Do you and your sister often frequent the road by the river leading towards the town?” he asked, as if extricating that very afternoon from her thoughts.

“Not usually. A special occasion warranted a visit there. Happily enough we were blessed in fostering a new acquaintance when you and Mr. Sasayama chanced to encounter us,” she said lightly.

Mr. Kougami said nothing. But the tightening of his face spoke clearly, a silent but obvious admission to the deep enmity between the two men. As if he sensed her close scrutiny, he spoke, the effect like dragging nails on stone. “Mr. Makishima makes for an easy acquaintance in whatever circle he deigns fit to involve himself. To speak of the resilience of his friendship is a different matter of course.”

“Unfortunate that he has not maintained his with yours, and to his own detriment, I believe.”

“Well, we cannot all be blessed in life.”

The resentment of such a statement was so keenly felt that Akane could not help her dismay for Mr. Makishima’s sake. The coil of dislike knotted even tighter in her stomach. She calmed her face, willed it not to be so open.

“I have recently encountered a copy of the latest book by your Miss Morrison,” he started by way of conversation, seemingly eager to switch to topics that he had a better handle on.

She hummed non-committedly, attempting to be as blasé as she could without being overtly rude.

“From the first few passages alone, I see your possible attachment. She is well versed with Spenser, I find. Some of her poetics follow the logic of his stanzas, which make for a pleasing and familiar rhythm in the cadence.”

When she didn’t speak, he prodded again. “Do you not have thoughts you’d offer since you favor her works so greatly?”

“I couldn’t possibly. I would not like to tempt fate and follow a topic I’m certain we share no similar feelings over.”

“No similar feelings? You’re so certain? Even so, discussing our differences in opinion would be fruitful in its own regard.”

“I do not discuss books while I dance,” she said lightly.

“I did not realize the two were mutually exclusive.”

“Only when I am taking great care to keep my head and be polite. I would not want to make an enemy of you, Mr. Kougami, if my attention is so split on ensuring I not step on your feet while I hasten to keep my mouth from slipping so easily against your favor.”

“And I warrant such ease?”

“Please do not take personal offense. My lack of manners while talking of books that are dear to me extends to everyone,” she said with a little cheek to conceal her contempt.

“What renders me unworthy to risk a dangerous discussion on literature, may I ask?”

“Your good opinion once lost is lost forever, or something of that sort, am I correct?” she reminded him mildly.

He sounded disbelieving. “And from that, you believe that I would be so severe in my judgment against you if you spoke out of turn by mistake or impulse?”

“I hardly know you to make such bold claims myself. But tell me, do you practice caution with your friends now because resentment can be so easy to sow?”

For a moment, the room slowed and Akane’s breath truly caught at the open play of emotions that ran through his usually stoic face. She had felt the severity of his scrutiny in the past but the force of such things occurred within the polite distance of one end of the parlor where she could easily ignore him. But here, there was no room for distance or for cover.

He saw her.

And she saw him.

“Is there a point to this line of questioning, Miss Tsunemori?” he asked her slowly, carefully. She could see him piecing her mention of Mr. Makishima in relation to the bigger picture of what she was implying.

_An analytical man of particular severity, so pointed in his attention with an obsessiveness that almost borders on insane lethality._

_Almost_ borders. He was no danger to her.

Correct?

While Akane’s courage had always flown her just skirting the edge of the sun’s melting point, she felt the true hazard of such heat in her body under his gaze. For a breathless moment, she was reminded of the marked fear she saw and recognized for herself in a hunted rabbit’s eyes when she had strayed too far in the woods as a child. The look of a prey who knew it was prey. But she felt no inclination to retreat from this man even if he made her blood run hot.

So she met his gaze as evenly as she could. “As I said, I hardly know you enough to form a complete picture so I find it productive to better sketch out your person now in order to make my own judgment.”

“And what has your judgment determined so far?”

She wanted to lay bare the accusations but propriety kept a limit to her courage. “Only that you are indeed difficult to determine.”

“And you trust your sources? Difficult as they are?”

“I do.”

“You may find that they are always doomed to form an incomplete, even inexact picture.”

She couldn’t help her amusement at that; a scathing, husky laughter rose from her chest. “What choice do I have but to follow the truths available to me?”

His eyes seemed to narrow at the sound.

“Well. Far be it from me to suspend your pleasure at such an endeavor,” he said, his voice low and cold.

Without warning, the barely there cradle of his hand snarled hers with a sudden firm grasp that had her swallow a gasp of shock. He jolted a little too in retraction, as if surprised that his hand had carried a will of its own that sought to hold her without the intention of a gentleman. They stared at each other, momentarily caught at the tilt of a crag just before a sheer drop into the bottomless abyss.

The line clapped twice, signaling the second portion of the dance as the two froze, fixated upon each other with an intensity that could not be found in the exchange of two civil people.

He was no gentleman now and she was certainly no lady.

Akane was reminded of the first time she had ever ridden her father’s stallion when she was nine. The towering beast had nickered, baring its teeth open. Her breath had quickened, the heat of her blood rising to her head, and all she could see was an opponent she needed to tame. Hajime had counseled her beforehand that a level head over stupid daring was the method of a good equestrian. Too late for that first lesson as the beast reared back and would have nearly trampled her if not for the horsemaster’s quick thinking. The experience was a lesson of humility. Only kindness and patience that day had earned her the trust and partnership of the wary animal.

But this time, she hadn’t the kindness nor the patience for Mr. Kougami. As far as she was concerned, he deserved neither. And no dignified stallion was fit for comparison for the man before her.

A fox perhaps. Maybe even a wolf at worst.

For her own sake, if she could pretend polite indifference, she would.

 _If_ she could.

She had not realized how impossible it was to maintain distance during this portion, much less keep her head from drowning below the level of reason. How closely one needed to approach their partner as they swayed to and fro. How inadvisable it was to look elsewhere to ensure they were moving correctly in tandem.

The couples dancing in unison with them were a mere blur in her peripheral, her attention trapped onto this man, his eyes and the way he maddened her blood and tongue to skirt danger. They swayed to and back, palms brushing involuntarily in the momentum of their bodies.

Retreat. Forward.

A constant fight or flight dynamic that narrowed the gravity of the earth into the microcosmic push and pull of their two forms. How much had one touch magnified her other senses? Did he hear similarly as she—the sound of her deepened breaths, the thudding of her heart at her ears, the front of her dress momentarily brushing against the fabric of his waistcoat as they circled each other closely?

Was this what her forebears must have felt like in the middle of a hunt?

Without warning, he turned her, his hand quick to her waist as the other swung her to face him again. And so they were caught one more time on that same precipice.

She did not realize how out of sorts she was until she had stumbled onto him and found herself a little closer to his front than propriety would generally allow. She looked upwards and did not know why she was surprised to find him still watching, his eyes half-lidded with an expectation that left her clenching with the involuntary heat of her own body. What face she must have been wearing for she had never felt more conscious of it when his gaze dropped for a miniscule second to her mouth.

For a man so cold, he seemed to emit his own warmth like a furnace.

The frigidity of his gaze had been replaced by something else entirely. Neither rabbit nor wolf. But like the sun, oblivious of its own gravity. That if she was mad enough to fly higher, she could easily fall into that force and heat and never resurface.

_I thought I would melt onto the floor from the intensity of his regard upon you alone._

She had laughed her disbelief at that, and wondered now why she did.

The sound of the other dancers clapping the band to a finished flourish was barely a buzz in her ears. When the noise and her own sanity chased and reached her body, she released him and the applause drowned out the fog in her head, receding her into the sharper, colder but muted space of reality. Herself, ever just herself, but with a new awareness she maintained she neither asked for nor wanted.

Without waiting for another word from him, she bid her courtesy carefully and pretended not to feel the hunt of his stare when she escaped the formation with the reasonably slowest pace out she could manage.

* * *

She was certainly not fleeing.

She just needed a bit of air. Yuki could certainly wait for a moment more.

The French doors of the balcony were thrown wide open but only a little light from the room reached outside. As such, the balcony was a notorious place for young courting couples to test their boundaries as they straddled the line between proper manners and less than proper flirtation. She hoped she was not intruding on a scandal and blessedly found it empty.

The chatter inside was not completely muted out here but she felt she could keep a level head now. The cold, crispness of the air filtered her lungs with new breaths and clean clarity.

Brisk and exactly what she needed.

Now clear-minded, she smothered her inclination to analyze and pick at her behavior, a necessary tendency borne from her habit of getting into trouble by prodding the unknown and chancing risks as a child. She had thought that such habits had been tempered by age, maturity and the lesson that not every impulse of her passions correlated with wisdom. Akane had always led by her heart first and she did not mean for the force of her dislike to compel her to provoke him. But it was not violence that emerged. Just one certain grip of his hand as if it had desired to draw her in further. The remnants of their charged encounter involuntarily recalled the discrete moments of their dance, his heat, his eyes—and she banished that line of thought immediately.

Dislike, she was certain. It was all dislike.

“Why am I not surprised that you are risking your death out here?”

She nearly jumped at the familiar voice, whipping around to face Mr. Ginoza who stood by the doors and was looking quite ruddy and put out even in the semi-darkness of the balcony.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted.

“Presumably for the same reason as you. I needed some air. Crowds have never been my forte and it seems Mr. Sasayama has seen fit to pack the entire town here.”

She did not know what to say to that.

“He’s very popular,” she said lamely.

“Obviously,” he said as if he derided the characteristic.

He stood next to her, a respectable distance between them as he considered the scene of the garden with a half-focused look. Akane stared at him with confusion before it dawned on her why he was being so loose and familiarly prickly.

“How much have you imbibed tonight?”

“That’s not fit for ladies to know.”

She dismissed the comment easily as she peered up his face. “I did not mark you as a man who was free with the bottle.”

“Why?” he drawled, almost mocking. “Because I am temperate and rigid in my work, I must be temperate and rigid in everything?”

“No. But I had certainly thought you’d be a little reasonable.”

He laughed, the sound so familiar and unfamiliar that she nearly jolted again. “Well, I had thought myself reasonable too but entertaining such company in business requires...requires sociability and charisma that I lack. Alcohol helps a little in that regard.”

“You were working tonight?”

“Some tradesmen who have connections with other brokers in the next continent were in attendance. It’d be remiss not to grasp the opportunity.”

“You do know that there is such a thing as rest? I had thought that after years in the university you’d see the use of a proper one.”

He snorted. “When my inn finally calls me to the bar, then I will rest on my laurels.”

“You still mean to practice law?”

“Why are you so surprised? Weren’t we the ones who played as attorneys when we were children?”

She paused, a little taken aback that he remembered that even in his drunkenness. “Then why are you moving to India for Lady Kasei?”

“So I can still practice law.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I had not thought you naive, cousin.” He glanced at her before returning to his study of the garden, his voice quieter. “An open secret is not much of a secret, practically speaking, especially in the higher rungs of the peerage.”

“Oh,” she could only say, comprehension settling on her.

“I may not be a bastard legally. But the ton is less forgiving of the definition. So Lady Kasei has been my sponsor not just in my social standing but in my legitimacy. And I need both if I mean to move up the ranks and ensure my career. A few years to do her business in another continent is a mere stop for the rest of my life.”

She understood him better now and she felt a little disarmed as she grew aware of her presumptions, the unwitting resentments she had carried over the years after he stopped his visits coming to light in the space between them.

“That seems very...sensible,” she said with discomfort as her feelings bubbled to the surface. Her thoughts returned to Mr. Makishima’s tale, two children who had little to differentiate them except for one important detail. One may smile, and smile…

So in the cold of the air, she confessed to herself her resentment for his inheritance, how it rendered her family prey to his whims. She had resented his career, the ease and choices he had by virtue of his gender to which she would never be privy. And she had resented his absence, how easily he had ignored and abandoned them when an opportunity to be in higher standing presented itself. In the blanket of such feelings, she had forgotten he could suffer as well as anyone.

“I did consider a short reprieve by asking you to dance tonight, you know,” he spoke, rattling her out of her musings.

“What stopped you?”

“I remembered that I am a terrible dancer. And I hate dancing.”

The answer was so honest it pulled a smile out of her. “You were always better behind a sheet of music.”

“When has important human advancement occurred during a dance? I tell you, never. Dancing is utterly pointless…” Here he struggled for the words, his eyes blinking lethargically. “Pointless...fripp—whim-wham.”

Akane coughed out a laugh. “Whim-wham?”

“I do not know how you ladies bear with such... banality.”

She laughed truly, feeling as if she’d had this conversation before. “Well, I can understand your frustration. But one may argue that dancing affords us to make better acquaintances of one another.”

She stopped because no, she was certainly not going to be thinking about that, or him. She shrugged those thoughts off and continued, “All the more necessary to help us find like-minded partners. The same way you entertain your clients in business and we entertain gentlemen in friendship or courtship for marriage. Each is a partnership of sorts that requires its own rituals. But simply because it appears banal or frivolous does not render it unimportant. Surely, you of all people must know how a small moment under the eye of society can define the course of one’s life forever?”

They were silent for a minute before he rubbed a hand over his face. “You would have made a very good lawyer, you know. Put half of the sloths in Eton to shame.”

Would have. Story of her life.

But she tired of it, how she dragged around her would-haves and could-haves behind her for so long. So rather than the resentment, she allowed her amusement and irony to play at such a scenario. “I don’t think those powdered wigs would suit my dress.”

He made a noise and she was uncertain if he was amused or affirming. “Would it be a missed opportunity now if I asked you to dance?”

Oh, Akane was well done with dancing for a little while.

But he did not need to know about any of that. Instead, she joked, in awe of the sheer peculiarity of this night, “I have enough self-preservation to protect my toes, if you’ll allow me, dear cousin. I wish for at least one thing of myself to survive for tomorrow.”

They listened to the clamorous hum of chatter inside and the lives they would need to return to eventually. He breathed noisily into the clean air.

“You and I both.”

* * *

Akane was not entirely certain of how they all managed to sprawl themselves on the carriage and return home. The rest of the night was a near anomaly, not by virtue of alcohol, but because she had spent it in an opportune nook away from the activity and crowd of the ball. She had seen only a little of her family and she was certain, based on their record in previous outings, she would hear much of it later as harmless gossip in the town rumor mill.

Breakfast was a dismally quiet affair.

Her father was deep in his reading while her sisters were in an unusually pensive or contemplative mood, their thoughts too enveloped to whatever was occurring in their mind. Shion had been fretful that morning, as if the energy of last night still lived in her nerves. Mika was just quiet, which was a concern in it of itself. Though she indulged the habit of making her sisters’ business her own, Akane was truly and genuinely exhausted from the events of the past weeks. Her thoughts wrapped around her like a vice.

Belatedly, she realized Mr. Ginoza was noticeably absent and she winced in sympathy at how ill his head must be.

So it was a true surprise to see him enter the dining room, wearing his smart coat and carrying no remnants of his inebriation on his countenance. He had his leather brief under his arm, looking ready for business more than anything.

“Mrs. Tsunemori,” he said gently so as not to completely jar the woman. Her mother looked up from her cold tea, very much out of it.

“Hm?”

“If I may?” he continued, tilting his head expectantly.

“If you may...? Oh… Oh!” Her eyes comically widened as if in comprehension of something, an expression she held before her strange gaze landed on Akane. Akane’s familiar instincts that arose whenever her mother was plotting something caused her to almost stand in alarm.

“Akane, dear, you stay.” She came to full standing and clapped her hands twice, which prompted the other three members of the family to reluctantly pull themselves away from the fog of their thoughts. “Everyone! Everyone, needs to leave.”

“What?” Mika croaked out, her eyes blearily turning to her mother.

“Everyone, out!”

A confused chatter of pushed chairs and inquiries melded amidst her mother’s shooing, drowning out Akane’s concerns.

“Mama, what are you doing? What is happening?” Akane ineffectually motioned for her mother’s attention.

Shion and Mika stared at their sister as they exited with varying levels of disbelief and confusion, and her father’s knowing, almost mournful look was the last she saw of them before Mrs. Tsunemori dragged them out and closed the door with a shut of finality.

Mr. Ginoza stood patiently at the center of it all, immune to the rabble of the Tsunemori family as usual.

She shook her head. Then laughed with a little hysterical edge because of course the absurdity of last night would follow into this morning.

“Mr. Ginoza, if you mean to—”

She stopped at his sudden approach.

“I will not kneel nor beg. Instead, I will speak with you levelly, one logical mind to another.”

He sat at the chair closest to her and brought his case onto the table, uncovering the sheaf of papers inside. She stared dumbly, reluctantly taking them for her inspection at his silent prodding. Her thoughts were in such a flurry trying to grasp what exactly was happening that it took a moment in the jumble of her mind to register her name printed elegantly on the paper. When she flipped through, she recognized her sisters’ names along with Yuki’s and a few other women in the town.

While she read, he spoke in explanation, “I will start with honesty as none of this can happen without a basis of it. I did not come here to reminisce or say my farewells out of some sentimental sense of nostalgia. In her counsel, Lady Kasei had imprinted on me the importance of my duty and how to do it well. You are no stranger to the fact that I am not exactly graced with the ease of being able to ingratiate myself in high society. While it would be easy to rail at my faults, I realized that in my recognition of them, I cannot fulfill what is asked of me without seeking assistance.”

“Assistance? You require a helper?” she asked slowly in confusion when he fell silent in wait for her reply.

“I require a wife.”

She was not completely surprised but the statement caused her fingers to twitch against the papers anyway like a delayed response. With creeping dread, she realized these entries were not random observations or journal entries of his time here but a case file.

Her person, her sisters’ characters, women of the town, jotted in economical succinctness as if he was establishing an argument.

A case for who would best fit the role of the suspect.

She would have almost laughed if she didn’t feel a little ill.

“You understand, do you not? You confirmed to me last night: the importance of one moment under the eye of society. Businesses, laws, nations have toppled for less and been remade through the channels of one dinner conversation with the right person. I have no illusions about the reaches of my ambition but I know that we would make a good partnership. I have observed you closely since I arrived and noted your character, comparing it with how I knew you before as a child. You are still just as quick-witted, intelligent, sociable, and brave with an even bigger capacity for loyalty, justice and fair play. You can be a tad too impulsive in your passion and are stubborn and judgmental at times but I know you are too sensible and aware to completely alienate yourself in society. I was not lying when I said that you would make a good lawyer. And since such a dream is impossible, then what better role for you to fit than a lawyer’s wife?”

Akane stared at him mutely, a distant part of her mind impressed that his university training was worth the money.

He must have mistook her silence for consideration because he continued, “And you would benefit too. Your mother has told me in confidence that my entailment is a source of anxiety for your family and while I am still green in my career, I have no doubt about our economic security in the future. You would be mistress to your own house in India, free to dictate as you wish and go about your days in a manner befitting your whim. And when it is my time, you would have this house as your own again. Truly your own. Your mother and sisters under our protection and your childhood home as part of your inheritance at last.”

She looked at the papers, then to his expectant and patient face. Unwittingly, she imagined for a moment his proposal. What would it be like to have all that he described? To fully succumb to the ease of what he was promising? She looked at the face she was staring at now and transplanted herself fifty years forward into the future. How would his face look to her with her own aged eyes? What would she think?

What would she feel?

After some time, she put the papers down carefully on the desk and regarded him evenly. “You have one glaring fault in your case.”

“What’s that?”

“My feelings for you are not that of a wife towards her husband.”

He paused before his face broke into a half-smile of wearied amusement. “Who said feelings needed to have any say in this?”

She stared at him, completely befuddled and sorry that they were coming against a block on this of all things. “What do you think is the basis of marriage if not feeling?”

“A mutual benefit. You said so yourself that marriage was a partnership.”

She wanted to throttle him awake. “Like-mindedness in _feeling_. A partner in life to share ideals and friendship and affection, not...this.” She gestured helplessly at the papers. “This cost-benefit evaluation that mistakes compatibility as possible without laughter or warmth or sincere humanity.”

Mr. Ginoza’s brows drew together, similarly lost that they had reached an insurmountable point of miscommunication. “I had assumed… much as I regret my impropriety last night, I had assumed that we were on the same page when we spoke. That you agreed with the usefulness of a well-arranged marriage.”

“That you speak of marriage at all as a useful means rather than an end for its own sake is exactly why we are not on the same page.”

“These past weeks. Your regard for me. Your consideration of my feelings. These were not advances?”

“Advances? Those were not—that is, that was certainly never my intention. I had no agenda in mind whenever I conversed with you.”

“Then for the life of me, I cannot comprehend why you would be so indulgent of my poor state of company last night.”

“Because I thought—”

_I thought you had wanted to be my friend again._

Mr. Ginoza waited for her answer but Akane could not bring herself to finish her sentence, the sound of it so pathetic and juvenile in her mind.

 _Of course,_ she thought with a little bitterness at her naivete. _What did you expect, Akane? A grown man and a single woman can never be just friends._

“I will go with you. To India,” she clarified, her voice tattered but firm. “On one condition.”

Like a true man of the law, he was wary. “What are you proposing?”

“I will go as myself. I will manage your affairs and entertain your guests and make you a home. I will care for you in sickness and in health. But I will not do it as a wife.”

He looked at her as if she had spoken gibberish. “I’m not certain what you—”

“I will assist you, do all that you require of me and not even expect a single farthing or anything else in return, if you take me with you and introduce me to your company unbound and free as I am before you now.”

“My dear,” he said with helpless bemusement and frustration. “It is not done. It would be one thing if you were my sister by blood. But you are a single woman and I am a single man. I do not need to explain to you these facts. You already know—”

She stood so suddenly her chair almost toppled behind her and Mr. Ginoza visibly flinched in surprise.

“Then I thank you, sir. But I believe our business here is concluded.”

Without another word, she left him and pushed through the door and the crowd of her eavesdropping family. Her legs picked up into a run as she ignored her mother’s indignant squawks and the rest of their bursts of chatter behind her as she made her escape. Her heart was at her throat, drumming as she fled, completely out of the field and into the throng of trees in the woods.

* * *

Her mother was sure to murder her.

The forested enclave looked a little less warm in her eyes. Even the frogs on the pond seemed to accuse her with their croaks. This was the shelter of her youth, a pocket within the woods that she found by chance in one of her adventures. She sat on the old felled log laying on the dryer grass, her knees pulled up to her chin as she sullenly watched the occasional ripples of water from the frogs’ activity. Every time she had argued with her mother or her sisters as a child, she would hide away in this place and ask for help by leaving a gift of bread or a stray button for the faeries.

“Apologies. No offerings today,” she muttered belatedly before resting her head on her arms.

She did not know how long she stayed in that position when she heard the familiar rustle of bushes and footfalls announcing his entrance behind her. She idly imagined the scene she must have left in her wake. Her mother fretting with pleas and apologies on Akane’s behalf. Shion, worried. Mika, entertained. And her father—what must her father think?

She didn’t look up when she heard him sit next to her on the other end of the log.

“You needn’t worry,” he started. “I am not here to repeat myself. And I come out of my own volition and with full respect.”

She lifted her head. His hand was open, a piece of crumpet set on top of his palm. She watched him leave it in the space between them. He caught her eye and while she was tempted to look away, she kept her gaze firm.

“Your family was worried. And I gathered based on your sisters’ reactions that I am the only person who knew of this place and that you would be here.”

“I just needed a moment where I wasn’t—”

“Expected of anything?”

“Well.” She waved an aimless hand at him.

“I didn’t think you’d be entirely pleased to have me intrude but I took the risk.”

“Why?”

“If only to explain myself. Perhaps you’d better understand me if I came here with no expectation. I had not imagined such a reaction, fully anticipating you’d be pleased that a marriage between us would be of mutual benefit since you always advocated for fairness.”

“You speak of marriage as if you are bartering in a marketplace,” she said flatly.

“Is it insensible for me to do so when that is the model of the world?”

“There is a difference between what is sensible and what is right.”

“And what is right in your eyes, Akane?”

Her given name, spoken so casually out of nowhere almost made her stumble from her line of thinking.

“I will not marry out of the cold logic of business alone.”

“And you would stay unmarried for your gratification?”

She spoke as calmly and firmly as she could, “If you mean to say that I am only refusing you out of some inflated sense of self, then you have not known me at all.”

“Perhaps. Or maybe we have grown too distant as strangers to be even compatible in mutual understanding,” he mused.

“At least there we are in agreement.”

Quiet couched between them, the leaves and the frogs filling in on their behalf. She half-considered walking back to the house with her spine upright and leaving him there alone but hesitated when he spoke again.

“Do you remember how we used to collect all the dandelions here and raced to see who could blow away the seed heads the fastest?”

Surely, some true magic resided in this hollow of the forest and the brim of this pond. The stillness of the water, the shared memory of their youth, gentled that quiet into a suspended spell of reminiscence. A peacefire, even momentarily. She was not the only one who had found this place after all.

He had been with her when she first stumbled into it.

“Whoever won had their wish granted by the wood sprites first, and you almost always beat me. You weren’t very chivalrous back then.”

Akane saw him suppressing a smile as he picked a dandelion near his foot.

“I used to wish for many things, mostly frivolity. A new clavier. New riding boots.”

“New sister.”

He did smile at that and it was enough to make the spell of nostalgia stronger. “Even when she could barely speak, Mika was already proving to be a force.”

“More like a thorn.”

“Yet you love her fiercely. I used to envy that you three had each other as siblings to share the pains of growing up like you did.”

“I used to wish that you were my brother in truth,” she blurted before reason could gain ahead.

He did not say anything outright and Akane regretted her impulse. When he spoke again, his words were soft. “I used to wish for you all to meet my father in person.”

Akane sensed she was not speaking of his legally named father, whom she met on occasion growing up. She did not know what to say exactly to such an admission. He never talked of Mr. Masaoka, much less to her.

“I would have liked that,” she said stiltedly but honestly.

He spoke slowly as if he knew this would be the only time he would say these words. “I mostly knew him through letters. Once, I resented the conditions of my birth and blamed him for it even as he supported me with the few coins and words he had. I even resented you sometimes for no other reason that your family was whole and that you even had a place like this to hide in when I had no such refuge at my own house. How often I would hear the maids who would whisper behind my back, only adding to my painful confusion of my grandfather’s cold tolerance. It is a strange thing to feel as if you are an imposter in your own family. So on the occasions my father tried to visit when his unit was in town, I shunned his company because I thought him at fault. Only when I lost him did I realize how much all three of my parents had risked and lost for love. For me. What indulgence am I warranted at the face of such sacrifices?”

She gripped the log underneath her palms. “I understand. Believe me, I do.”

“Do you? We are no longer children who can afford to play-act at life, much as I consider our adventures together the few balms of my childhood. Everyone has a role and a duty, including my father and mother. And they served it honorably even as it killed them separately.”

Akane sounded tired even to her own ears as if she’d been repeating herself all of her life. “I do not want to die for love, Nobuchika. Merely live for it. Our hearts are not commodities to be traded and if I strayed from mine, what else would I become?”

“Do you not hold some patience, Akane?” he asked softly, his eyes studying the weed in his hand. “Or harness some of your easy courage to dare fate. That if you said yes, in time, we might grow to see each other and live as true halves?”

Akane was stumped into silence. So she responded honestly and in the moment.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Quite right,” he said—his voice wry, warm, and so much older. “And now it seems, we never will.”

He stood—the boy gone, truly gone, and the gentleman in his place. He didn’t wait for her response as he placed the dandelion where he found it. She listened closely for his receding footsteps, certain this was the last time she would hear that sound in this space. When she could no longer hear him, Akane allowed herself to sit with the enormity of her decision.

She did not know how much longer she sat by the bank of the pond by herself before she picked herself up to leave. She turned around and walked back home, all the more certain with her decision even as she could feel in the thud of her heart her childhood irrevocably closing behind her. The faeries’ silence had been their answer years ago.

And the only answers that mattered to her now could only be found outside of the woods.


End file.
